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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23251915">Faith and Fortitude</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/flight_feather/pseuds/flight_feather'>flight_feather</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Heartbeat (Mia Shepard) [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Mass Effect Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Mass Effect 3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 16:16:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>21,038</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23251915</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/flight_feather/pseuds/flight_feather</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Mass Effect 3, from the perspective of my Infiltrator, Mia Shepard. </p><p>Mia's been through hell -- and she brought her entire team back with her. As the Reapers arrive on Earth, Mia has one goal: to get back to Garrus. She'll make the Reapers pay, but there's no Shepard without Vakarian.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Female Shepard &amp; Garrus Vakarian, Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Heartbeat (Mia Shepard) [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/527065</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Vancouver</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hey, friends! I've been taking some time away from fanfic to <a href="https://www.whitneyhillwrites.com/original-fiction/">write original fiction</a>.  I started my public writing in fanfic, and wanted to give back as I prepare to publish my first full-length novel (especially given the state of the world these days). I hope you'll indulge me as I return to my original OTP: Shepard and Garrus. </p><p>My readers get a little shout-out in the dedication for my urban fantasy novel because, as ever, I write for y'all &lt;3.</p><p>I've skipped to ME3 since I just started replaying it today. Let's see what unfolds...</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>An insectoid machine the size of two skyscrapers thundered to Earth, blotting out the sun and the Vancouver skyline. Mia Shepard forced down a wave of gut-wrenching fear. </p><p>The Reapers. Here. And this so-called “Defense Committee” was unprepared and panicking. </p><p>A god-sized horn split the sky with a bone-shaking sound that lodged somewhere deep in her mind, the place reserved for nightmares in the depths of hell. A beam so red it flared to white in the center burst forth.</p><p>“Move!” she shouted, suiting action to words and sprinting away from the exposed window. </p><p>Legion’s evaluation of windows flitted through her mind as glass shattered. <i>Goddamn structural weaknesses</i>. A command desk launched and rocketed overhead. An explosion lifted her into the air and tossed her against the wall as flame licked toward her. Sound faded into ringing.</p><p>
  <i>Garrus.</i>
</p><p>Her lover’s face hovered alongside unconsciousness. Mia shook them both away with a toss of her head. If she wanted to see Garrus again, she had to stay awake. Stay focused. Stay alive. Keep moving. Get off Earth. </p><p>A pang twisted her heart as she pushed to her feet. Her duty was here. Her heart was on Palavan. Was he still there? She hadn’t spoken to him in six long months. <i>Focus, Shepard. </i></p><p>Admiral Anderson handed her a pistol as sound came rushing back, creaking metal and cries of pain. She ignored his astounded commentary as she followed him through an obstacle course of slag and rubble. </p><p>Yes, the Reapers had gotten here faster than they’d anticipated.</p><p>Yes, they were stronger than anyone had envisioned. </p><p>Yes, thousands would die for every minute they were here. </p><p>
  <i>I told them. I told them. I told them!</i>
</p><p>Not that it would do any good now. Mia picked off husks scaling the building, acutely aware of her missing armor. The shitty, unmodded pistol needed twice as many shots to stop each of the creepers. A waste. She made every shot count. Garrus had always marveled at her crack shots with a pistol, even as he rivaled her with sniper rifles.</p><p>She forced a door open, her cybernetically enhanced muscles straining against the resistant mechanism. Anderson ducked under as she checked their rear for any more husks – and spotted the boy. Small and pale, his tousled brown hair singed and face smeared with dirt, quaking with fear as he peered from a ventilation shaft.</p><p>They didn’t have time to play rescuers. But she couldn’t leave him. She dashed back, trying to coax him out. <i>Where the hell am I gonna keep a boy?</i></p><p>“You can’t help me,” the boy said, making her choice for her even as he broke her heart. A Reaper trumpeted, and adrenaline spiked as Mia turned to look for it. When she turned back, the boy was gone. </p><p>
  <i>Shit. </i>
</p><p>She counted the child’s disappearance a blessing when they ran headfirst into a new creature. A krogan xenomorph? A batarian? <i>Doesn’t matter now. Survive. Garrus is out there, somewhere.</i> She put the enemies down, one shot in each of their four eyes. </p><p>Her omni-tool chirped as combat settings were re-enabled remotely, and she grinned, finally feeling a bit more like her old self. <i>Burn, motherfuckers.</i> They went faster with an incineration blast to see them on their way. </p><p>They cleared this batch. Pushed forward. A few downed soldiers pointed them to a radio. Mia let Anderson make the promises of safety. She knew better, and couldn’t dig deep enough to find inspiring words just now. The boy had been right. She couldn’t help them. Not here, not now. </p><p>
  <i>Survive.</i>
</p><p>More Reapers landed, their upswept carapaces slicing across the sky as they lurched forward. The usual sounds of skycar traffic and city activity were gone, obliterated in the assault, replaced by the numbing hum of the machines and the cacophony of their destruction. The light of their energy weapons was brighter than the sparkle of the sun on the oil-slicked water; brighter than the fires consuming spilt fuel and harsher than the roars of the new xenomorphs between them and the radio.</p><p>“There,” she said when they were put down, spotting the radio. Anderson tried to call the Normandy but lost the signal. Mia scooped up an abandoned M-8 Avenger and pushed aside the ugly bitterness threatening to choke her at the idea of Kaidan commanding her ship. She was better than that. More importantly, she didn’t have time for it. </p><p>More Reaper creatures crashed to the wreckage, firing on her and Anderson as they burst forth. Bullets whizzed past her unhelmeted head. Mia ground her teeth so hard she was surprised they didn’t shatter, refusing to flinch. </p><p>“I hope they get here soon,” Anderson said, firing a concussion round at a creature as it leaned over to absorb something from one of its fallen. </p><p>“You and me, both!” Mia rocked another beast back with an incineration blast to stop it from doing...whatever it was doing. <i>They’re consuming the dead to heal.</i> She shuddered. <i>Cannibals.</i></p><p>Blast. Shot. Shot. Shot. Shot. Shot. </p><p>Mia fell into the familiar rhythm of battle, so different from that of her dancing days yet no less in control of her actions. Rhythm called. She answered. Lactic acid started to burn in her muscles, only to be washed away as adrenaline and cybernetics compensated. Sweat dripped into her eyes and she shook it away. </p><p>Blast. Shot. Shot. Shot. Shot. Shot. </p><p>Heat sinks dwindled. Mia gritted her teeth and took precious seconds away from the battle to recalibrate her omni-tool. <i>Bless you, Garrus, for showing me that trick.</i> Her incineration blast recharged faster. </p><p>“Running out of ammo!” </p><p>Mia didn’t respond. Ammo or not, armor or not, she’d survive this. She had to. She’d promised Garrus, when they’d parted, that she’d be back. She tried to act according to her better nature, but had no problem lying, cheating, or stealing when the situation – or the asshole she was dealing with – called for it. </p><p>Not with Garrus. Never with Garrus. She’d made a promise to him, and she’d keep it. </p><p>A red flare announced another pack of cannibals. Mia loaded the last of her heat clips. Grim determination tightened her skin and made the hair on her exposed arms prickle. <i>I will see Garrus again.</i></p><p>The familiar shape of the Normandy skated into view, firing on the remaining cannibals. “Cavalry has arrived.”</p><p>Relief washed through Mia, but she held it off. They weren’t out of danger yet. She could be relieved when she was safe. <i>As if safety is ever going to be a thing again with the Reapers here.</i></p><p>The hanger bay opened, revealing Kaidan. “Welcome on board, Shepard.”</p><p><i>Welcoming me aboard my own damn ship.</i> “Thanks,” she said, trying to find gratitude, and patience. She’d turned the Normandy over when she’d turned herself in. It wasn’t her ship anymore. Nothing was hers anymore. <i>I killed 304,942 batarians to save the galaxy, and all I got was this t-shirt.</i></p><p>That didn’t make it grate any less that the Normandy had ended up in Kaidan’s hands. He hadn’t trusted her back on Horizon. Hadn’t given her the benefit of the doubt, like Garrus and Tali and Joker and Doctor Chakwas. She’d thought he might have had a thing for her, once, but maybe it had just been her command he’d been after.</p><p><i>No time for that. You’re not even an officer anymore. Just another refugee with a useful set of skills. You’re better than this. Be useful.</i> Mia squared her shoulders and looked back for Anderson, resolving to rise above pettiness.</p><p>
 “Shepard!” Anderson called from below. </p><p>She waved. “Come on!”</p><p>When Anderson turned to look in the direction of the men they’d passed, Mia’s heart sank. She knew what he was going to say even before the words left his mouth. “I’m not going. You saw those men back there. There’s a million more like them, and they need a leader.” 
</p><p>Her stomach churned. She couldn’t leave Anderson behind to fight alone. But she couldn’t break her promise to Garrus. “We’re in this fight together, Anderson.”
</p><p>“It’s a fight we can’t win.” A roaring started in Mia’s ears as her ordered her to the Citadel. To rally the Council.
</p><p>She’d seen this play out before. “What if they won’t listen?” <i>They never do. No one does. And now we’re all fucked, not that that will stop the galaxy from asking me to pull another miracle out of my ass.</i>
</p><p>“Then make them listen. Now, go! That’s an order.”
</p><p>Defiance flared, washing hot through her chest and out her mouth. “I don’t take orders from you anymore, remember?”
</p><p>“Consider yourself reinstated, <i>Commander</i>.”
</p><p>
Mia caught the tags he hurled at her. Clenched them tight in her fist as she made another promise to one of the few people other than Garrus to whom she’d keep one. “I’ll be back for you!”
</p><p>Anderson waved and Mia watched as he hustled off and the Normandy gained altitude. Movement caught her eye. Shuttles. She spotted the boy from before, watched him climb aboard. Her heart lifted. <i>He made it.</i></p><p>A Reaper roared, crushing her hopes. <i>Go. Go!</i> Mia willed the shuttle to take off. To flee. 
</p><p>It did – straight into the beam.</p><p>Mia’s throat closed and she looked away, then forced herself to look back as the bay door closed. Tears blurred her vision as she seared the scene into her memory. <i>I’ll be back for all of you.</i>
</p><p>Everything in her surged and roiled as she made her way to the locker in which she’d stored her armor before turning over the ship. Someone had already laid it out on the prep table. A savage little smile curled on her lips when she spotted it, despite James Vega hot on her tail and firing questions at her like they were shotgun rounds.
</p><p>Mia ignored him. Vega was a good soldier, and he’d been the best of the lot assigned to her guard detail, but she was still getting her feet under her and needed just one fucking minute to breathe. <i>Focus, Shepard. Make a plan.</i></p><p>“We’re leaving,” she said to Vega and Alenko both. She put up with their back talk and debate until she’d had enough. “We’re going to the Citadel. You want out, you can get a ride home from there.”
</p><p>No sooner had she shut that down than Joker announced a message from Admiral Hackett. She couldn’t stand the admiral, but the deck under her feet and Joker’s voice on the comms and Hackett treating her like a dogsbody actually settled her, for once. This was normal. Comfortable. She had her commission. She had her ship. She had a mission. And she had at least one of her crew. 
</p><p><i>I’m back.</i>
</p><p>Mia’s heart rate steadied. Her pulse slowed. Her mind cleared. She’d tracked down her crew once before. Fought off Reapers twice before. So they had Earth this time. So, what? She’d do it all again. </p><p><i>I’m Commander Fucking Shepard. And I’m coming for you, Garrus Vakarian. Please be alive when I get there. You make life worth </i>living<i>, not just fighting for.</i></p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Mars</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm taking a little bit of liberty with the in-game dialogue to keep things moving :)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The storm rolling in on the horizon matched Shepard’s mood. Dark, heavy. Lightning crackled, a promise of the violence both she and it would unleash when they arrived. As she hopped down from the shuttle, she remembered being more even-keeled than this. More hopeful. Even after Akuze, she’d kept up her faith in the galaxy. In the Universe. </p><p>Dying seemed to have changed that.</p><p>Or rather, dying and being reincarnated as a terrorist, at least as far as her comrades in the Alliance were concerned. Vega was as solid as he’d been when she was under house arrest, but Mia had seen the tension in the lines of Alenko’s body as they’d suited up. He didn’t trust her, and he was at her six. It made her itch. </p><p>With a roll of her shoulders, she turned her head until her neck popped. <i>Garrus isn’t here. Deal with it.</i> Alenko was obeying her, for now, and that’s what counted. Hackett had said Liara was somewhere on this red rock; Mia’s focus had to be on rescuing the Shadow Broker from whatever trouble the asari’s pursuit of information had gotten her into. </p><p>She led them forward, grimly ignoring the back-and-forth of the soldiers behind her. She had her armor. Her weapons were still missing – she’d kill to have her Black Widow rifle back – but the ones she had now were better than the salvaged pistol she’d had before. Baby steps. Each one would lead her back to Garrus eventually.</p><p>Orange sky and rusty dirt stretched as far as the eye could see, interrupted only by the Archives until they dropped down from a cliff and found a body. Alenko recognized the man. It didn’t bode well; the sentinel had always been more emotional than Mia was comfortable with. She steeled herself, but it wasn’t Kaidan she needed to worry about just yet.</p><p>Transports blazoned with the Cerberus logo waited outside the entrance to the Archives below. A few troopers loitered...but others had Alliance soldiers kneeling. Mia flinched as the crack of a pistol announced an execution, then darted into cover. She could feel Alenko judging her from behind his helmet. </p><p>She’d worked with Cerberus. Been the poster-girl for humanity against the Collectors. The Alliance had tacitly supported her mission, in exchange for the intel she fed them, but there were no shades of grey with Alenko. Unlike Garrus, he seemed unwilling to accommodate them. </p><p><i>Focus.</i> She didn’t give a shit for the opinion of anyone here, and didn’t need to. Mia knew what she’d done. She knew what she’d intended. And she knew the results. So did everyone who’d actually been there. They were the ones whose opinions mattered. That made it easier to brush off the barbed insinuations about convenience as the squad pushed forward and engaged Cerberus. </p><p>Mia directed the men into place with hand signals, then fought Cerberus troops with a quiet, controlled fury. <i>I’m not one of you. I never was. I owe you nothing.</i> The litany played through her head as she flanked and eliminated them from behind their positions, nice and quiet to avoid alerting any of their comrades inside the building.</p><p>Alenko’s demand for “a straight answer” as they rode the lift to the main level infuriated Mia. Hadn’t she just taken out most of the Cerberus troops on her own? She breathed in, slowly. Exhaled. “I joined forces to take down the Collectors. That’s it.”</p><p>“There’s more to it than that,” he pushed. “They rebuilt you from scratch. Gave you a ship.”</p><p>She clenched her fists, reminding herself of the need for patience. She was in command again. She had to act like it, not like a street tough. “Let me be clear. I’ve had no contact since I destroyed the Collector base. I have no idea why they’re here or what they want.”</p><p>Vega jumped in. “Commander Shepard has been under surveillance the whole time she was under house arrest. No way she’s been in touch.”</p><p><i>Breathe</i>. Nope. Breathing wasn’t gonna cut it. “You don’t trust Cerberus, fine. But I am <i>done</i> explaining myself to you. Are we clear?”</p><p>Alenko flinched, and his tone became conciliatory at the edge in Mia’s voice. “Perfectly. I didn’t mean to –”</p><p>A clatter interrupted him, followed by filtered voices. Gunshots. A feminine grunt and a crash from the ventilation system, then the hum of biotics and three more shots. </p><p>Mia dashed forward, just in time to see Liara double-tap a pair of Cerberus agents. She pushed aside the thought that Liara’s growth, her new lack of hesitation, was attractive, and extended an arm to slow Vega’s rush forward. “Easy there, Lieutenant. She’s with us.” </p><p>The revelation that there was a potential Prothean weapon was both welcome and irritating. Trust Liara to be the one to track it down – but why was the information only emerging now? After decades?</p><p>And of course, Cerberus had gotten the hot tip. That meant they'd have a plan, and a back-up plan. They always did. Didn't mean that those plans worked  - the Project Overlord shitshow came to mind - but they'd try. She sent Vega back to the shuttle, preferring to have him as an ace up her sleeve. Liara's biotics would balance out the squad, and of the two soldiers, Mia preferred to have Alenko where she could see him. Not that Vega saw it that way. <i>Give him time</i>, she reminded herself. </p><p>She kept her focus as they swept the facility, putting down Cerberus troopers as quickly as possible. It was almost too quiet without the comforting rumble of Garrus’s subvocals or the occasional bleed of his in-helmet combat music into the squad’s channel. <i>Clean up. Get to the Citadel. Talk to the Council. Get to Garrus.</i> The to-do list was easy and to-the-point. For now. The Council always seemed to find a way to complicate it. </p><p>Then again, it might be Cerberus serving up the complications, this time. The cafeteria had been vented. With no power and the faint roar of the storm blowing in, everything felt like one of those horror video games, the kind where a zombie leapt out for the kill. </p><p>Nothing jumped out, though, and they found a working console with security footage. Mia leaned closer, trying to get a look at who had vented the room. “The doctor,” she said, surprised. They’d had an insider. She indulged herself in brushing Liara’s cheek at the asari’s distress over not recognizing the doctor as a Cerberus agent. She was still fond of Liara as a friend, even if Garrus held her heart now. <i>Have faith</i>, Mia willed her. </p><p>Alenko looked away, shuffling his feet. He’d probably heard the rumors about them on the first Normany. </p><p><i>Wait till he finds out about Garrus</i>. The thought put Mia in a better mood, as did the next fight.</p><p>All the goodness seeped out of her when they pulled off the Cerberus trooper’s helmet in search of a commlink. Vacant, glowing eyes stared back at them, and the blue track marks Mia associated with Reaper creatures veined the man’s face. He hadn’t been completely transformed, but this was stomach-turning.</p><p>“Looks like a husk,” Alenko said, shuddering.</p><p>Mia pulled off her helmet and peered closer at the skin and hair. “Not quite. They did something to him, though.”</p><p>“Is this what they did to you?”</p><p>Heat surged in Mia’s blood. <i>Of all the ignorant fucking questions. Do I look like a bloody husk?</i> She forced her face blank but couldn’t keep the disbelief and hurt from her voice. “How can you compare me to him?</p><p>“I don’t know what you are, or who, not since they rebuilt you. For all I know, you’re their puppet, answering to the Illusive Man himself.”</p><p>That hit too close to the mark on some of Mia’s worst nightmares. Was she still human? Was she still...her? If the Illusive Man had had Reaper tech to implant into her, would he have been so insistent that she save the Collector base? Miranda had promised there was no kill switch, no control mechanism. On her bad days, Mia wasn’t sure that she believed the lifelong operative. Garrus always managed to reassure her, but he wasn’t here. </p><p>She steeled herself. It was bad enough to have the thoughts ricochet through her head without having Alenko voice them back to her. “Stop, Kaidan.”</p><p>“I just want to know, is the person I followed to hell and back still in there, somewhere?”</p><p>Liara winced and busied herself at a terminal as Mia stared at him. “To hell and back” was, in her mind, the Omega 4 Relay. Yeah, Virmire and the attack on the Citadel had been bad. Real bad. But those missions hadn’t been undertaken with the near-certain knowledge that they were a one-way trip. He’d abandoned her – abandoned all of them – when they’d faced the Collectors, preferring to pass judgment instead of trusting that she wasn’t…evil.</p><p><i>So much for being done with explanations. This has to stop, before he infects the whole crew with doubt</i>. Gathering herself, she said, “Cerberus brought me back to do one thing: stop the Reapers. You can join me, or you can leave, but you’ve got to make up your mind.”</p><p>“I’m with you,” he said after a moment of consideration. A long moment; one that hurt more than it should have given that he’d already turned his back on her once. </p><p><i>Lead, Shepard, and let it go. You’re not a little girl. Set this aside. Finish this mission. Get back to Garrus.</i> “Glad to hear it. Let’s get going, see if we can find some answers.”</p><p>They blagged their way into a tram pick-up a little too easily. Mia’s sixth sense prickled. Cerberus had to know someone was here by now; someone should have missed all the troops they’d killed, or heard a battle. “Get ready,” she told Alenko and Liara.</p><p>Cerberus didn’t disappoint. Two fights later, they hustled out of the tram to find a room hosting a Prothean artifact. Stunning, bathed in green, just like the beacon on Eden Prime had been. Mia shivered in remembered pain. Those visions had <i>hurt</i>.</p><p>“Shepard.” </p><p>She whirled, raising her gun at the Illusive Man’s voice behind her. It was just a holo, sadly. Of course he wouldn’t come in person. He liked playing the spider in his web, with that damn sun glowing behind him. “What do you want?” </p><p>“What I’ve always wanted.” The Illusive Man drew on his cigarillo. “The data in these artifacts holds the key to the Reaper threat.”</p><p>Mia snarled, hating the man more than ever. “I’ve seen your solution. Your people are turned into husks!”</p><p>“That’s where we differ. Where you see destruction, I see improvement. Control. Imagine how strong humanity would be if <i>we</i> controlled <i>them</i>.” Another puff, as though he didn’t see the horrific end of his own logic. It started with a few shock troopers, but where did it end?</p><p>“You have gone too far,” Mia said, jabbing a finger at him. “The Reapers will kill us all if we don’t stop fighting each other.”</p><p>“I don’t expect you to understand, Shepard. You were a tool. But like the rest of the relics of this place, your time is over. Don’t interfere with my plans. I won’t warn you again.”</p><p>“Duly noted.” She allowed her tones to drip with sarcasm and disgust, wondering if Alenko would still find a way to twist this conversation into something unflattering.</p><p>“Someone’s erasing the data!” Liara called. “It’s being done locally!” </p><p>Mia swore. The Illusive Man's call had been a distraction, and she'd fallen for it like some damned amateur.</p><p>Alenko found the saboteur first. Dr. Eva Coré wasn’t human at all – she was an android, one like Mia had never seen. Alenko never had a chance; the android took him down and fled. </p><p>“Stop!” Mia shouted, firing an incineration blast as she took off after it. The android dodged, leading them on a chase back through the facility, then outside. Shuttle engines whirred. Mia took her eyes off her quarry just long enough to spot a boxy shape with the Cerberus symbol on it. <i>Shit.</i> She pushed harder, demanding everything she could from her enhanced body.</p><p>It wasn’t enough. She lunged, but missed the android as it leapt aboard the shuttle.</p><p>“I got this one!” James called over the comms. </p><p>Mia smiled as she skidded to a stop, glad that she’d sent the more inventive of the two men back to the shuttle as he crashed it into the Cerberus vessel. “Nice landing,” she quipped as Vega hopped out of the wreckage and danced away from the fire already starting to warp what remained of the shuttle's frame. As she evaluated the situation, wondering how the hell they were going to extract the target, metal creaked. </p><p>Before anyone could react, the android formerly known as Dr. Eva emerged and launched herself forward, catching Alenko by the helmet and shaking him like a terrier with a rat.</p><p>“Orders?” The android said coldly. It cocked its head for the reply, then whirled and smashed Alenko against the downed, burning shuttle. Armor crunched under the force of the blow, and Alenko gurgled in the comm. </p><p>Time slowed as the android dropped his body. Turned toward Mia. Charged. </p><p>She drew her pistol and clicked it to disruptor ammo in a smooth motion, dropping the thing with two quick shots. </p><p>“Shepard! We got Reaper signatures in orbit!”</p><p>She looked up, swearing as she spotted the ominous shapes. “Get that piece of shit and let’s go!” she ordered, pointing at the downed android. Vega hefted it easily and sprinted for the edge of the platform. Mia grabbed Alenko, hauling him into a fireman’s carry as the Normandy swooped down just long enough for them to leap on board. She didn’t like the man, but he was her crew. She’d do what she could for him. </p><p>They fled, barely ahead of the Reapers once more. <i>I am so fucking tired of running and the war has only just started.</i></p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Citadel</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Shepard tries to reach Garrus and convince the Council.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Mia sprawled on her bed in the captain’s quarters, watching the whirl of starfire overhead as they traveled to the Serpent Nebula. Being spaced made it difficult to watch the stars when they shone steadily, but she could manage like this. Everything was easier with abstraction, when the hard details could be avoided.</p><p>She brought up Garrus’s contact details on her omni-tool again. “This is Shepard, paging Vakarian. Come on, big guy.” Her throat closed for a moment. Something had to have happened. But what? He’d promised he wouldn’t go vigilante again, that he’d continue their fight against the Reapers and try his damnedest to prepare Palaven for the coming invasion. </p><p>“The Reapers broke me out of house arrest. Yeah. The Reapers. They’re here...in case you didn’t get my other message. I’m on my way. Okay? I –” she swallowed hard, stopping herself from saying the words. <i>I love you</i>. They hadn’t said them yet, even when they were on their way to the Collector base. All they were doing was blowing off steam. </p><p>Right?</p><p>“I’ll get there as soon as I can.” She forced a smile, having heard somewhere that people could hear it in your voice when you smiled. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” A shitty little joke, given that she’d done everything up to and including dying, killing a system full of people, and going through the Omega 4 Relay, but hell. He was the better strategist, when he held his temper. He’d figure something out.</p><p>Mia sent the message and turned to her side, tired of the rushing tunnel of stars that weren’t taking her where she wanted to go. How long would the Reapers spend on Earth, before turning to the other systems? She couldn’t help but feel like their attention there was her fault; she’d destroyed Sovereign, then the Collectors, drawing their full attention to her species. </p><p>Earth wasn’t home for her, but it was the birthplace of humanity. Symbolic and vital to both war efforts and morale, even for her. Mindoir was long gone. Garrus was missing. And Earth was under attack. She was alone. Unanchored. </p><p>Her heart thudded as the feeling of an uncontrolled spacewalk washed over her. Spinning, pitiless stars watching her gasp for the air hissing from a shredded tube, cold pinpricks of disinterest against the expanding white disc of Alchera.</p><p><i>Hold it together, Shepard</i>. She squeezed her eyes shut and breathed, in and out, in and out, focusing her thoughts on Garrus. The way his voice made every part of her come alive. The low thrum of his subvocals, almost purring when she snuggled against him after sex. “Die for the Cause” blaring in a firefight, punctuated by rifle fire. The dull pressure of blunted talons skating over her skin, contrasting with deadly sharp teeth and the gentle flutter of mandibles in an alien butterfly kiss.</p><p>Slowly, Mia calmed. She could breathe. She was alive. That meant she could still win. <i>What’s the plan?</i></p><p>Step one: get to the Citadel. Drop off Alenko. Talk to the Council. Get aid for Earth. </p><p>Step two: Track down Garrus, even if it meant pulling her Spectre status over her Alliance commission. He needed to know what was happening. Palaven needed to know. News vids wouldn’t be able to tell him the details she could share. With the rest of the Alliance fleet mobilized in defense and resource gathering for Liara’s blueprint, the Normandy was the only ship that would be free to go. </p><p>Maybe. If she wasn’t requisitioned for more pressing Alliance or Spectre business. Love had to come second to duty, now more than ever. Her chest tightened at that thought, but she was a soldier first and foremost. So was Garrus. If anyone would understand, it was him.</p><p><i>Am I even a Spectre still?</i> Did her trial change that? Did it matter? She set it aside.</p><p>Step three: Whether she found Garrus or not, Mia had another promise to keep. She had to get back to Earth. Find Anderson. </p><p>Step four: kill every single one of those Reaper sons of bitches and sling them the hell outta her galaxy. </p><p>Yeah. That would work for a plan. Mia took one last deep inhale, and let it all go. </p><p>***</p><p>The Council was inclined to be even more outrageous than usual. “The Reapers are <i>here</i>,” Mia said, leaning forward on the railing and fixing each councilor in turn with a hard look. The cuts, scrapes, and bruises she’d taken escaping Earth, then Mars, had already healed, a gift of her upgraded body. She had to hope they could see the urgency in her eyes instead. </p><p>She watched them all as Liara presented the blueprint. They hadn’t taken her seriously about the Reapers before, and she’d saved all of their asses when Sovereign attacked the Citadel. She knew what doubt looked like on their faces, in their voices, and it was there again now. Despite everything she’d done. All she’d given. All the Alliance troops sacrificed so that they could stand here and make the same. Damn. Mistakes. She stood straighter and explained that Hackett was sending the Alliance fleet to gather resources. </p><p>“Do you really believe this can stop the Reapers?” Sparatus asked. Mia had heard that tone in Garrus’s subvocals before: reluctant hope. He wanted to help...but he needed her to help him.</p><p>She answered the turian councilor as positively as she could. “Liara believes it can work, and so do I. We need to stand together, now more than ever. The Reapers won’t stop at Earth. They’ll destroy every organic being in the galaxy if we don’t find a way to stop them.”</p><p>Reminding them that the Reaper threat would spread was the wrong thing to say. Tevos said no – they needed to secure their own borders. Valern agreed. Sparatus gave her a long, weighing look, then reluctantly followed them out. </p><p>
  <i>Shit. Spirits damn them all. </i>
</p><p>“I’ll see you back on the ship,” Liara said when they parted ways.</p><p>Mia waved. She wasn’t done yet. “What now?” she said as soon as the door to Udina’s office shut behind her. “Why wouldn’t they help this time?”</p><p>“They’re a bunch of self-concerned jackasses, Shepard. Humanity has a seat at the table, but we’ll always be second-rate.”</p><p>“How can they be so blind?” Mia paced, still kicking herself for misspeaking. She had to do <i>something</i>, politicians or no. Spectre status or no. Anderson needed help, and she’d promised to get it for him. </p><p>Udina scoffed, throwing his hands up. “They’re scared and they’re looking out for themselves.” </p><p>The door chimed a moment before sliding open. Sparatus walked in, a frustrated note echoing in subvocals that Mia shouldn’t have been able to hear. “Our people are scared, and we’re looking out for them the best we know how,” he said in rebuttal to Udina. Turning to Mia, he added, “I can’t get you what you need, but I can tell you how you can get it.”</p><p>There was the explanation for the note she'd heard in his subvocals earlier. Her heart sang as the turian councilor described a mission to Palaven, even as she looked for the catch. Sparatus’s mandibles flicked out, in what Mia recognized as a turian shrug. “The Normandy is one of the few ships that can extract Fedorian undetected.” </p><p>This would give her the excuse she needed to get closer to Palaven – and Garrus – but this wasn’t her first tango with the Council. Anderon and Earth still needed help.</p><p>She eyed Sparatus. He held his mandibles unnaturally still, but kept checking his subvocals, thrumming tensely below Udina's hearing range, then cutting off before forgetting himself and starting again. He needed this, badly. The stiff mandibles must be his idea of a poker face, but he didn't know she could hear in the turian range, now. <i>You don’t ask, you don’t get. Worth a shot</i>. “So far you’ve only explained how I can help you.”</p><p>“It might seem that way, but the leaders of the summit will be deciding our future.”</p><p>Mia held back a sigh. He wanted her to play politician, sending her to Palaven, but saddling her with a mission that would probably keep her from looking for Garrus. All without promising a single damn concrete thing for Earth.</p><p>“Our latest intelligence says that the primarch was moved to a base on Palaven’s largest moon.” Sparatus studied her in return, his subvocals falling silent.  “I’ve done all I can to help. The rest is up to you.”</p><p>
  <i>The rest. As though he’s not asking me to turn my back on two of the people I care about most in the galaxy to go and move planets with half a verbal promise.</i>
</p><p>Sparatus paused on his way to the door with a note she couldn’t read twanging through his subvocals. “Oh, there’s one other thing – the Council voted to uphold your spectre status. Good day.”</p><p>Mia ran that over in her mind while Udina bitched a little longer about “maybe laters” from the Council. There was an opportunity here, especially if they were reconfirming her Spectre status. “I know what I’m gonna do," she interrupted. "What are you gonna do?”</p><p>“I’m going to spread a message: help the humans, help yourselves.”</p><p>“What’s your read on the political situation?” If she was going to fetch a politician, she needed to know how to leverage it.</p><p>“Tevos is protecting her people like a mother panther. Valern and the salarians like their wars won before they begin.” Udina sighed, his mask slipping before he remembered who he was talking to and found it again. “It’s strange days when the turians are the least hostile to humans, and there’s a need there.” </p><p>Mia nodded, saying nothing of the need in her own heart. “I should go.” The sooner she got to Palaven, the sooner she might get help for Anderson - and find someone who knew where Garrus was.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. En Route</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Mia gets a little hope...and a little despair.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Mia hit the Normandy’s bridge like that storm back on Mars. She’d caught an announcement at Huerta Memorial when she’d stopped at the hospital to speak with Alenko’s doctors, something about Palaven and the need for staff licensed to treat turian patients to remain on-call. <i>That can’t be good.</i></p><p>“Joker!”</p><p>The pilot jumped, knocking his cap half-askew at Mia’s abrupt entrance. “Commander! I, uh, take it the Council was as helpful as ever?”</p><p>“As ever.”</p><p>“I was afraid of that.” He rolled his eyes. “Where to now?”</p><p>“Set course for Palaven.”</p><p>Joker’s face twitched, blank-smirk-blank, the way it did when he knew Mia was in a mood and couldn’t help himself. “Picking up the big guy?”</p><p>The look melted into concern when she shook her head and swallowed past the sudden lump in her throat. “No. Maybe. I dunno. Sparatus wants us to rescue the Primarch.” Mia looked out the viewport, lowering her voice. “You heard anything from him?”</p><p>“Not since you went into house arrest,” Joker said solemnly. “EDI’s been hiding out while they do the retrofits, but she’s got a program running. We haven’t heard anything about him, from any source.”</p><p>Despite her disappointment, Mia’s face softened as some of the irritation of dealing with the Council eased. “You’ve always had my back, Joker. I don’t know what I’d do without you. And EDI, too. Thanks, to both of you.”</p><p>“Aw, come on, now, Commander. Don’t get mushy on me. It’s gross. Save it for Vakarian.” He spun his chair back around, but not before Mia caught the slip in his smile. “Setting course for Palaven.”</p><p>Mia left the bridge in almost as much of a storm as she'd entered it and headed for her quarters, determined to figure out a way to leverage the politicians for her own needs. The long day of arguing with the Council caught up with her, though, and she slipped into a restless sleep. Then a dream.</p><p>It was Mindoir, the forest she’d played in as a girl. Before the batarians. Before Sovereign, and the Collectors, and the Reapers. Ash choked the air, as it had the day the slavers had struck, burning everything to get their prey to scatter...and as it had when the Normandy had fled Earth.</p><p>A child’s laughter rang out. A glimpse of a pristine white hoodie through the trees. <i>This is no place for a child!</i> Mia tried to run, but her feet dragged slower. The boy’s laughter goaded her. She’d almost caught him when the trumpeting of a Reaper shattered the ash-laden stillness. The boy cowered. Fled. </p><p>
  <i>Let me save you!</i>
</p><p>Laughter melted into sobs, boyish cries of anguish and fear that squeezed Mia’s heart. She caught up. Reached for him. Watched him burst into flame the same searing red of a Reaper’s beam.</p><p>She sat up, gasping as she shook herself awake. A knock at the door startled her enough that she reached for the pistol on the side table before placing herself. <i>Normandy. My quarters. Not Mindoir. Not Earth. No threats.</i> Mia slid from the bed and palmed the door release harder than was strictly necessary. “Liara. Can I help you?”</p><p>The asari stepped into the room with more self-assurance than she’d had six months ago. “I’ve been forwarding the turian councilor information about the prothean device, but they’re not budging until the Primarch is safe.” </p><p>“I know.”</p><p>Liara frowned, her blue gaze flicking over Shepard. Like her steps, it held more assurance, and more focus, than it once had. “Are you alright?” </p><p>Mia hesitated. “I didn’t get what you’d call a good night’s rest.”</p><p>“There’s more to it, isn’t there? What’s really bothering you?”</p><p>Habit made Mia balk at answering, but Liara was a friend. One of her closest; they’d almost had a relationship. She had to talk to somebody, or she’d burn herself out long before the war was over. “When the Reapers hit, I could hear people screaming in the streets below me. We left a lot of them behind.”</p><p>Liara’s platitudes didn’t do much to make Mia feel better, but at least her friend was trying. That counted for something.</p><p>The door chirped an override code and slid open. “Commander Shepard? I’m Specialist – oh, I thought you were alone.”</p><p>Mia frowned, wondering when that override had been installed and resolving to <i>un</i>install it. She had plans for Garrus, if she could find the man, and they didn’t involve being walked in on. Smirking at the thought, she decided that whoever walked in on her fucking a turian would deserve the eyeful they’d get. Liara shook her head, probably knowing where Mia’s mind was, and left. </p><p>One of the crewmembers Mia had passed earlier coughed uncomfortably and introduced herself as Sam Traynor, then started babbling. “There weren’t many of us aboard when the Reapers hit.”</p><p>With an effort, Mia dug deep for patience and put her Commander face on. She should have gone round and introduced herself to the crew before now, but...priorities. “Slow down, Specialist Traynor. You’re doing fine.” </p><p>She paid careful attention to the ship’s new layout, annoyed that it had been rearranged yet again. The Normandy that had survived the Collector mission – and that had absorbed so much unlikely camaraderie in the process – was gone. She sighed, perking up again when EDI revealed herself. The AI had grown on her over the course of the Collector mission, and Mia considered her as much a part of the family as everyone else who had survived that mission. </p><p>Reluctantly, she pulled herself away to check in with Hackett. For once, he told her to do exactly what she wanted: bypass the Council and appeal directly to each government’s leadership, build alliances, and find the people who could help do all that.</p><p><i>Garrus is one of those people. He pulled the fireteam together at the Collector base. He can help me bring the galaxy together now.</i> The cards were shifting in her favor at last. </p><p>Mia had just one more question. “What about Earth, sir?”</p><p>“We’ll just have to hope Anderson and what’s left of the Alliance forces can hold out.”</p><p>That was exactly what she’d been afraid he would say. </p><p>Seeking refuge from her own frustration as much as the disarray and novelty of the retrofitted Normandy, Mia made her way to the main battery and locked the door. It had been rearranged and scrubbed clean of any evidence that Garrus had practically lived there for the months leading up to the mission’s conclusion, and she winced as she saw all the green lights on the status report for the guns. That meant someone had fucked with his calibrations; the damned lights were always amber or red when Garrus worked on the guns, but they never aimed truer or fired stronger. </p><p>He’d have a fit. When she found him. </p><p>A Mantis lay on the new workbench along the starboard wall, where Garrus’ cot used to live. Mia frowned, wondering whose it was until she saw something had been etched in the stock. Turian script, maybe. She ran her fingers over it, then hefted the rifle close to where she thought she remembered a camera being and said, “EDI? What’s this say?”</p><p>“It’s Palaveni,” the AI replied. “It says, ‘There’s no Vakarian without Shepard. You owe me a tie-breaker’.”</p><p>Mia choked up. The Mantis clattered as she leaned on the bench and just breathed as a tightness in her chest eased.</p><p>“Is everything okay, Commander Shepard?”</p><p>“Yeah, EDI. Everything is better than okay.” Gathering the rifle, she headed back up to her quarters. Garrus had left it. Reassurance, a sign, a promise, who knew, but it was good. <i>I’m coming. I just hope you still want that tie breaker</i>. </p><p>***</p><p>“Commander?” </p><p>Joker’s voice over the ship’s internal comms shook Mia out of her attempts to match the stripe on her armor to the same color blue of Garrus’s colony markings. She turned down the club music. “What is it, Joker?”</p><p>“I think I know why we haven’t been able to raise the big guy.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“Check the news,” Joker said grimly. </p><p>Mia pulled up the Alliance News Network. She stared at the headline, the first one in a while not to mention Earth - and tried to breathe for the heartbeat it took for her to find the courage to look at the pictures. Earth had been hit first, but the Reapers hadn’t stopped there. </p><p>Palaven was burning.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>How would you guys feel about switching to Garrus' POV? There's no Shepard without Vakarian, after all...</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Menae (Garrus)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>A quick Garrus chapter &lt;3</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Garrus thought he might finally understand the tightly leashed horror Mia had always exhibited when husks appeared. A human wouldn’t notice it, but he knew his girl. Every line of her body, every hitch in her breath, every shift in the harmonics of her relatively flat vocals – all an open case file to him. </p><p>He just hoped he wasn’t as open to the soldiers looking to him to lead the turian strategy against the Reapers. </p><p>The first of the new Reaper creatures had caught Garrus by surprise. He’d known, at an academic and strategic level, that if humans and protheans could be turned, any organic life form could. Knowing and seeing were two very different things. </p><p>Arms fire that had dutifully fallen upon husks stuttered as the not-turian gabbled. Any nuance in its subvocals had been lost along with its personality. It was skeletal, a pared-down version of a turian, its fringe, spurs, and talons exaggerated to their most grotesque and predatory state. Its mandibles appeared bolted to its jaw; too many glowing optics replaced its eyes. The creature had no means of expression. No purpose beyond shock and violence...and command. Husks flowed where it pointed. <i>It’s not one of us anymore</i>. </p><p>Garrus’s plates tightened and his hide itched under his heavy armor, a fear response he hadn’t experienced since Mia’s last near-miss, months ago. He summoned the memory of her fortitude in the face of husks and abominations, steadied himself, lined up a shot, and fired. Black blood sprayed from the headshot. He lined up another as rifle fire picked up again from those around him. “Drop the new ones first!” he ordered. “They’re directing the husks.”</p><p>A Reaper horn sounded. Garrus ignored it, and the gullet-wrenching sight of Palaven burning behind it. The machine was descending, but it wasn’t here, or now. It wasn’t firing beams – in his direction, anyway – or crushing shelters under a mechanical foot. Here and now were the husks and the cannibals and these new creatures. He adjusted his scope against the flares of ship wreckage disintegrating as it burned through the atmosphere. Aimed. Fired. </p><p>When it was over, Garrus took a deep breath. Exhaled slowly. Bowed his head as much from exhaustion as respect for the dead. Being surrounded by Hierarchy troops meant he wasn’t as burnt out yet as he had been in the last hours of his final stand on Omega, but the unending grind weighed heavy. </p><p>Approaching footsteps crunching against dusty gravel brought his head up. “Victus,” he said in greeting, pushing to his feet. “Glad to see you made it another round.”</p><p>“You too, Vakarian.” The older turian tapped the side of his head. “Still keeping score?”</p><p>“Always.” Garrus hadn’t told anyone else about his private contest, and hadn’t told Victus who it was with, but he’d been honest about the fact that he was counting kills when Victus had asked what he was checking on his visor after every battle. </p><p>Mia would undoubtedly find a way to make up for her time in house arrest in a matter of days. The woman might be an infiltrator, but she could plow through a battlefield like a vanguard when the situation called for it. Garrus was only counting sniper headshots, though. Had to keep it somewhat fair. He suppressed a growl at the idea of what she might do if she thought he’d cheated...and how pleasurable it would be to remind her that in private, Archangel was in charge.</p><p>Victus’s mandibles flapped in the gesture for <i>follow me</i> as he said, “I still haven’t heard anything about Commander Shepard being reinstated. The Reapers are here; I would have thought she’d be close behind, one way or another.”</p><p>Garrus fell into step beside him, doing his best to ignore the teasing note in the other man’s subvocals. He’d waxed a little more enthusiastic than was proper in one of his retellings about his time on the Normandy, and Victus suspected something, though he had no proof. </p><p>Flapping his good mandible wide, Garrus said, “The Alliance was short-sighted enough to lock her up; who knows when they’ll release her. Wouldn’t be their first hasty action.” He shouldered his rifle and tried to keep his subvocals free of both guilt and the long-simmering rage thoughts of her sentencing inspired.</p><p>“True.” More than a little teasing entered Victus’s subvocals as he added, “I’ve heard you...spent time with the Commander.”</p><p>The phrase Victus used for “spent time” could be interpreted innocently or sexually. Soldier’s banter, especially among turians, where such things didn’t end careers, but Garrus considered his response.</p><p>Being...involved...with a human wasn’t quite as gauche as it had been for his father’s generation – Victus’s generation – when the Relay 314 Incident was still fresh, but it was still unusual. A fetish, for some, given that most humans were so small and soft compared to the average turian. Garrus chose his words carefully, aware of Victus’s place in the meritocracy and his potential value to Mia’s efforts. <i>She’ll be out soon. She has to be. And when she is, she’ll need all the help I can give her.</i></p><p>“She’s very...turian,” he said at last, keeping his subvocals at the frequency of respectful admiration. “More than any human I’ve worked with. Or any alien, for that matter. Not just strategic. Keeps her eye on what serves the many, even if it costs her personally or sullies her reputation. She should be a general, at least, but she’s never demanded a promotion.”</p><p>“Works well with others?”</p><p>Garrus couldn’t help the amused flicker of his good mandible. “When it suits her. The good of the mission always suits her, though.” Reading between the lines of Victus’s question, he added, “She’s unusually good with non-humans. Nine times out of ten, her ground team included a combination of me, an asari, a salarian, a drell, a quarian, or a krogan. Even a geth. Rarely a human, unless a specific skill was needed.”</p><p>“How intriguing.” All teasing had left Victus’s subvocals and expressions. “And the Alliance tried and sentenced her despite her accomplishments?”</p><p>“The batarians needed appeasement. She...doesn’t have the best history with them.”</p><p>“I read about that. The slaver attack on her homeworld? Ghoulish stuff.”</p><p>Garrus didn’t answer. Mia’s integrity and record spoke for itself, and better than he ever could. Besides, the questions had re-opened the wound in Garrus’s heart, the one that only ever scabbed over rather than healing, and just long enough for him to survive another battle. It tore open again every time she wasn’t there at the end of the fight, with her cocky smile and the knowing look in her violet eyes, a look that had eventually ended in blowing off some steam. </p><p>“I can tell that she means a great deal to you,” Victus said into the silence.</p><p>“She’s an excellent officer. One of the best.” Garrus didn’t bother to temper that response; it was more than true. “Excuse me, General. I should go update General Corinthus.”</p><p>Victus waved. “Of course. The duties of our Expert Reaper Advisor never cease, fortunately for the rest of us, or we’d already be lost. Keep up the good work, Vakarian.” He looked at Palaven burning in the distance. “We need it.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>There's a 100-word flashfic in <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/14494158/chapters/34284011">Snapshots</a> that immediately follows this.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Menae (Shepard)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Shepard arrives at Menae and should learn to expect the unexpected, especially when it comes to Archangel.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Normandy entered the Trebia system in stealth mode. A horde of angular turian ships held formation around Menae, firing on the Reaper invasion with no apparent effect. Mia stood behind Joker, chin high, eyes hard, as he guided them to Palaven’s classified moon. </p><p>Explosions from vented atmo flared briefly before being consumed by vacuum. Mia refused to flinch as ship after ship was destroyed, either by the hateful red beams or the closure of Reaper talons around a vessel, like a toddler’s crushing hand. </p><p>It got worse as they made the descent in the shuttle. Mia clenched her jaw as she glimpsed Palaven, at the same time Liara said, “Oh no, no. Palaven.”</p><p>Vega frowned, and Mia said, “We have an old friend there.” <i>We think. We hope. Hang in there, Garrus. </i></p><p>Liara turned horrified eyes to Mia and Vega. “Was it like this on Earth?”</p><p>“Yeah.” Mia gritted her teeth, the anger that always burned at her core rising again as she thought of Anderson left behind to fight, maybe die, without knowing if or when anyone was coming back. </p><p>“I’m so sorry.”</p><p>Mia shrugged. Sorry wouldn’t fix it. Action would. She missed what her squad said next as her mind slipped into strategy and tactics. She had to get to Menae and get the job done before she could think about anything else. Or any<i>one</i> else.</p><p>“Commander, the LZ is gettin’ swarmed!”</p><p>A glance out the porthole confirmed Vega’s warning. “Open that hatch,” Mia said, ready to kill a thousand Reapers for doing to Garrus’s homeworld what they’d done to Earth. Husks mobbed them, drawn by the movement or the hum of the shuttle's engines, or both. Mia let everything else go, falling into the emptiness between her eye and the scope of her Mantis as the shuttle descended, then switching to her pistol and her tech when they got too close.</p><p>Fortunately, husks were all that greeted them. Liara lifted them into the air with a singularity, making targets for Vega and Mia to pick off. When they’d cleared the field, they hustled onward.</p><p>“Command is around the corner, past the first barricade!” </p><p>Mia acknowledged the turian who’d spoken with a clipped wave, keeping an eye on the clusters of Reaper forces falling like hellish meteorites. Abandoned positions, where the turians had fought for every metre of soil before being pushed back, filled the moon’s surface. They’d held the high ground, though, setting up an encampment. As her squad strode through it, looking for whatever would pass for a command center, Mia wondered how much longer it would hold. The defenders were a skeleton crew, exhaustion showing in drooped mandibles despite their regulation-stiff postures.</p><p>An authoritative voice drew her to one of the shelters halfway through the camp. They approached at a jog, then waited for a turian with periwinkle blue colony markings to finish barking orders to his troops. “Commander Shepard,” he said when he saw them. “Heard you were coming but didn’t believe it. I’m General Corinthus.”</p><p>Tentatively, Mia did her best approximation of a respectful trill. She didn’t have the subvocals for it, and Garrus had only ever made it when she had her Commander face on – rarely, with him – but she was about to make a big ask and it couldn’t hurt to try. “General, I’m here to get Primarch Fedorian.”</p><p>After a surprised twitch of mandibles, Corinthus returned the trill, adding a sad note as he bowed his head and said, “Primarch Fedorian is dead. His shuttle was shot down an hour ago as he tried to leave the moon.”</p><p>Mia fought a wince. “That’s gonna complicate things. How bad is it, General?” </p><p>“We just lost about four hundred men in half an hour.” His plan had fallen apart under the Reaper force. Sound strategy had nothing against numbers, surprise, and superior firepower. “The Primarch and his men found that out the hard way.”</p><p>“I’m sorry. I hear he was a good man.” Mia tried to focus on the loss the man must be feeling, rather than the frustration that her mission was getting shot to hell before she’d even gotten to the main battlefield.</p><p>“And a friend.” Corinthus’s subvocals hummed a crestfallen note as his mandibles drooped, then tightened. “He would have been an outstanding diplomat.”</p><p>Though she wanted to give him space to mourn, Mia pressed on. “So what happens now?”</p><p>Liara shifted her feet. “The Turian Hierarchy provides very clear lines of succession.”</p><p>Corinthus pulled his mandibles in tight, the turian equivalent of a frown. “With such heavy casualties, it’s impossible to be certain who the next Primarch is. Palaven Command will know. We can find out if you can get a nearby comm tower operational.”</p><p>“On it.” More moonscape. More blood. Mia kept her focus on her objective, not allowing the sights and sounds to distract her.</p><p>“Husks at the tower overwhelmed us,” a soldier said as they passed, glancing up only for a moment before continuing first aid. Blue blood soaked the bandages under his hands. </p><p>A guttural roar announced a resurgence of some of the husks in question, and she picked up the pace, skidding to a stop in front of the control panel at the base. </p><p>Her engineering experience told Mia the issue immediately. “We can’t repair it from this panel. James, you’re up for tower repair.” Vega would be slower, but she needed Liara’s biotics for crowd control. They held off the husks, and were rewarded by an incoming message.</p><p>“Commander Shepard, come in. I have information from Palaven Command. Please return ASAP.”</p><p>“On my way.”</p><p>The turian they’d passed earlier was keening over a still form. There was nothing any of them could do, so Mia gritted her teeth and jogged on. Earth would be full of scenes like this. Everywhere would, until and unless she got enough people together to stop it. </p><p>“What’ve you got?” Mia demanded as they arrived back at the command post. <i>Something. Give me something.</i></p><p>Frustration rang in Corinthus’s voice. “The Hierarchy is in chaos. So many dead or MIA.”</p><p>“I need someone. I don’t care who, as long as they can get us the turian resources we need.” Mia bit her tongue, reminding herself that it wasn’t Corinthus’s fault that the Reapers were attacking, the Hierarchy was at least as much of a shitshow as the Alliance, and everything was a disaster quickly hurtling toward a catastrophe of epic proportions.</p><p>A new voice rang out. “I’m on it, Shepard. We’ll find you the Primarch.”</p><p>“Garrus!” His name left Mia’s mouth before she could stop herself, or think about whether the amount of joy and relief that had escaped her with it was suitable for this place and time. Six long fucking months, followed by a journey full of worry, and he just appeared like some damn magician. But the same thing had happened on Omega, when she’d sought out a vigilante calling himself Archangel. <i>I should have expected this.</i></p><p>Corinthus straightened. “Vakarian, sir, I didn’t see you arrive.”</p><p>“At ease, General.” </p><p>The surprise of Garrus telling a Hierarchy general to be at ease flickered in Mia and was lost as she stepped toward him, remembering at the last second to extend her hand rather than jump on him, squeeze him in a hug, and then grab him by one of the pointy bits and shake him until something broke off. “You’re alive!”</p><p>He shrugged, the human gesture looking odd on his turian frame. Amusement tinged both his voice and his subvocals when he said, “I’m hard to kill. You know that.” Amusement and...affection? </p><p>She was out of practice. There were no turians on house arrest. Not even any turian porn. “Good to see you again. I thought you’d be on Palaven,” Mia said once she’d pulled her mind away from their last night together and found her tongue. </p><p>This time, bemusement was topmost in Garrus’s voice, and he shifted on his feet. “If we lose this moon, we lose Palaven. I’m the closest we have to an expert on Reaper forces so I’m...advising.”</p><p>Big, bad Archangel, two-plus metres of awkwardness and adorable as all hell with it. She’d forgotten how cute he was when he got like that. <i>Get ahold of yourself, Shepard. You’re not a silly girl. You’re a fucking Spectre.</i> She cleared her throat and introduced Vega, not missing Garrus’s tap at his visor as he checked something about the Marine.</p><p>“General Corinthus filled me in,” was all Garrus said after shaking Vega's hand. “We know who we’re after.”</p><p>“Palaven Command tells me that the next Primarch is General Adrien Victus,” Corinthus said over his shoulder.</p><p>“Victus...his name has crossed my desk,” Liara said.</p><p>Mia frowned. For a turian general to come to the attention of the Shadow Broker meant something unorthodox. Turians didn’t tend to do unorthodox. She’d only encountered it going one of two ways: like Garrus – a godsend in vigilante’s armor – or like Saren. “Know him, Garrus?”</p><p>“I was fighting alongside him this morning,” Garrus replied. “Lifelong military. Gets results. Loved by his troops. Not so popular with military command – has a reputation for playing loose with accepted strategy.”</p><p>There was something curious in his subvocals that Mia couldn’t read, and this was not the time to take anything at face value. “What do you mean?”</p><p>Liara and Garrus filled them in on Victus’s best-known counterintuitive strategy, and Mia pursed her lips, considering. <i>Good strategy. Definitely unorthodox, for turian military. Sounds more like something I'd do. This could be interesting.</i></p><p>“Bold strategy, but wild moves don’t get you advanced up the meritocracy,” Corinthus rumbled with more than a hint of disapproval.</p><p><i>Except when it does</i>, Mia thought. <i>This Victus could be exactly who we need.</i></p><p>Her thinking was confirmed when Garrus said, “Primarch Victus. That should be something to see.” In contrast to Corinthus, admiration buzzed through his subvocals. </p><p>That was good enough for her. “You think he can get the job done?”</p><p>Garrus cocked his head. “We both know conventional strategy won’t beat the Reapers. And I trust him.”</p><p>“Good enough for me.” There was no one in the galaxy whose word Mia trusted more than his. If Garrus Vakarian said this was their guy, then Mia would fight through hell and high water to secure him for the war effort.</p><p>Joker’s voice crackled over the comms, interrupting her next question. “Commander! Shepard, come in. We’ve got a situation on the Normandy; it’s like she’s possessed.”</p><p><i>Of all the fucking times for the ship to have a mind of its own</i>.  She sent Liara back when the asari volunteered. <i>Time to get this damn Primarch.</i> “Garrus, you said you were with Victus this morning?”</p><p>“Yeah, but we got separated. Went to bolster a flank that was breaking. Could be anywhere out there.”</p><p>“We’re trying to raise him, Commander,” Corinthus said.</p><p>“Incoming Harvester!” James shouted. “Heading for the airfield!”</p><p>“General, tell Primarch Victus we’ll rendezvous here. In the meantime, let’s go take care of whatever that thing dropped off.” Mia couldn’t help the quirk in her smile. “You coming, Garrus?”</p><p>“Are you kidding? I’m right behind you.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Reunited (Garrus)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Garrus isn't quite sure where he stands with Shepard, so battle buddies it is.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Fighting behind Mia again was surreal. Six long months of wondering how she was doing. <i>What</i> she was doing; house arrest was probably a fate worse than death for someone like her. She couldn’t sit still for more than a minute on a good day. The longer she was out of the field, the worse her temper grew, though she masked it well. Always had, but now he saw a fire in her step that spoke to a long-buried desire to kick some ass.</p><p>She’d come to the right place.</p><p>Garrus barrelled through the barricade just ahead of the new guy, Vega, and launched into cover. When the first marauder appeared, Mia’s helmeted head turned toward him. He couldn’t see anything other than her eyes, but they held a horrified, heartbroken look before she put her Commander face on. </p><p>He nodded, acknowledging the pain as she saw that his people were now being turned into Reaper creatures as well. It was all they had time for before he sparked an overload on enemy shields. Shepard followed it with an incineration blast, triggering an explosion. They fell into their old rhythm as though she’d never been gone, never been off the field, and never been away from him. </p><p>He tapped his visor to activate his battle playlist. “Die for the Cause” was too close to home, but the best of Expel 10 was perfect. <i>Just like old times.</i> </p><p>After that battle was another. Just like it had been for days. Had it only been days? It felt like a lifetime, even if Garrus didn’t count the time he’d been on this moon with his token taskforce, training for an invasion only his father really believed was coming. </p><p>
  <i>Focus, Vakarian. </i>
</p><p>Ahead of him, Shepard hustled as quickly as she would for an Alliance objective. Garrus loved her for it. That his people were also hers, regardless of where they’d been born or the pall cast by the Incident. It gave him hope that he wasn’t just some fetish of hers, but that they could really be something, someday.</p><p>Shepard swarmed up the ladder, and Garrus stayed right behind her. Of course, she took the big gun. He grinned at her enthusiastic <i>whoop</i> as the weapon – built for larger turian operators – kicked under her hands, then chuckled at Vega’s audible consternation at a soldier as small as Shepard handling a gun that size with ease. <i>She must not have mentioned the Cerberus upgrades.</i></p><p>It was almost fun and games...until the brute slammed into the barricade. Mia, unbalanced, tumbled to the ground below. And Garrus’s heart stopped as his plates tightened and his breath caught. </p><p>He hadn’t realized he’d jumped until he landed, firing as soon as he was upright and balanced. He hadn’t waited six long fucking months to see his girl again, only for her to be snatched from him in a freak accident. She’d probably be ripped from him eventually. It was a fact of their profession. But not today. <i>Not. Today. </i></p><p>They exchanged another long look when the brute fell. If any of the crew who’d gone after the Collectors were there, Garrus wouldn’t have given a damn about propriety, but he didn’t know the new Marine and he didn’t know how a relationship with a turian would affect her standing with a fresh Alliance crew. </p><p>He nodded. She nodded back. Vega looked between them, but said nothing.</p><p>“Shepard, Corinthus here.” </p><p>“What’s the word on the primarch?” Shepard snapped. Vega straightened, seeming unaware of the reflex, and Garrus let his good mandible waggle in a grin under his helmet. That wasn’t even her proper Commander voice, yet. She was being nice to the turian general, for now. <i>Definitely fresh meat</i>. Then he sobered. <i>Definitely better to wait and see what Shepard’s situation is before checking on the protocol for reunions</i>. </p><p>“Still can’t get a stable comm link,” Corinthus said. Frustration and the faintest hint of anxiety, quickly suppressed, tinged his subvocals. </p><p>“Okay, we’re going on foot.” She was Mia for a bare second as she looked up into Garrus’s eyes, then put her Commander face back on. “Garrus, take us to the last place you saw Victus.”</p><p>“This way.” He loped off in the direction of the line he and Victus had been fighting on that morning. Last night? With no solar cycle and no regularity to the Reaper attacks, it was impossible to tell. He refused to check his visor’s timestamp; it would just make him tired to know how long he’d gone without sleep.</p><p>“How far?” Shepard asked.</p><p>“Should be pretty quick. Unless we find trouble.”</p><p>She didn’t reply, just picked up the pace, keeping up with him as they hustled down the trail worn by retreating turian soldiers. A skid down a slope brought them to face Palaven, hanging before them. </p><p>Garrus rocked to a halt, gullet twisting at the sight of his homeworld burning. The only sections not on fire were the nature preserves, where nobody lived. And the worst of it was centered on Cipritine. “Dammit! Look at Palaven. That blaze of orange? That’s where I was born.”</p><p>“That’s rough,” Vega said. “Still have family there?”</p><p>“My dad. A sister.” Garrus clamped down on the keening note in his subvocals. They weren’t dead yet, as far as he knew. He wouldn’t mourn until he knew they were. </p><p>“How bad is it?” Shepard asked, dread in her voice.</p><p>“Three million lost the first day,” Garrus said flatly. “Five the second.”</p><p>Shepard shifted beside him, the small motion telling him she didn’t like what she was going to ask next. “How’s your military holding up?”</p><p>“Look around. That should give you some idea.” That came out sharper than he’d meant it to, but she did have a knack for finding him when he was at the end of his rope. She’d understand. He hoped. But it had been six months...he should qualify that. Just in case. “Fighting now, but how long until the fight’s kicked out of them? If they’d only listened to your warnings about the Reapers, we might have been ready.”</p><p>“Maybe,” Vega said. “Hard to figure how you prepare for something like this.” </p><p>A Reaper stomped across the landscape in the distance, past the wreckage of a still-burning cruiser as another fired volley after volley from its guns with little effect. Vega had a point, but with Cipritine a solid wash of flame and no word of his family, it was hard to be forgiving of everyone who’d first ignored Shepard, then palmed him off with a token task force. </p><p>He lurched into a run again, not wanting to talk about it further. Shepard’s shorter legs worked twice as hard to keep up, but she didn’t complain, didn’t call for him to stop. </p><p>A rasping howl announced a new threat. Husks poured over the ridge flanking the trail to attack in close quarters. Garrus didn’t realize that he and Shepard had moved to stand and fight back to back until the husks were dead. </p><p>
  <i>Just like old times. </i>
</p><p>“I shouldn’t have left Earth,” Vega grumbled.</p><p>“Gonna be bad everywhere,” Garrus replied, annoyed but trying to give the new guy some grace.</p><p>Vega wouldn’t take the hint, though. “Leaving the fight just pisses me off.” </p><p>Garrus couldn’t help the angry twang in his subvocals. “But you’re here asking Victus to do the same thing – leave the fight to make nice in some boardroom.” </p><p>“This summit is the only chance we’ve got,” Shepard said, her voice hard. “None of us is beating the Reapers alone.” </p><p><i>Definitely in Commander mode, but something else is bothering her.</i> Garrus shut up, not wanting to push her. He didn’t usually play the good turian soldier, but for her? He’d bite his tongue. Until they were in private, at least, and he could interrogate her at his leisure.</p><p>
  <i>Focus, Vakarian.</i>
</p><p>They ran into a turian squad nursing its wounded, and Garrus’s frustration jumped up another notch as he saw there was nothing they could do. Shepard left the talking to him while she scavenged, making a satisfied sound as she found something discarded or lost among the dusty stones. <i>Still the same Shepard</i>. The woman was a decorated hero, but that didn’t stop her from taking a walk with anything that might be useful. He let it go. Shepard could do more with a pot and a prayer than most soldiers could with a grenade, and she was here fighting with them. Let her keep the damn mod.</p><p>They pressed on, past the wounded, past the fighter with no survivors.</p><p>“So, Lola,” Vega said. “You really think this summit’ll work? I mean, sorry, but, salarians? Where’s the krogan and batarians? Where’s the meat?”</p><p><i>Lola? Clearly a new guy, if he’s tossing out nicknames and invoking the batarians with Shepard</i>, Garrus thought. <i>And discounting the salarians</i>. Mordin would have had a field day with this kid.</p><p>“It’s not that easy,” Shepard snapped. </p><p>“The batarians took the first hit when the Reapers arrived,” Garrus explained, careful to skirt around Shepard’s role in that shitshow. Aside from the system’s destruction, Aratoht had been one of their few real fights. The whole affair still gave him nightmares. “Not much left of them. The krogan have never forgiven us for the genophage.”</p><p>“Right,” Vega said, sounding accusatory. “Turians sterilized them. Salarians helped.”</p><p>“And the krogan hate them both for it,” Shepard said. She’d never been comfortable with the reality of the genophage, but she’d also never sounded this bitter about it. </p><p>“So they won’t be joining us,” Garrus said, filing Shepard’s reaction away for later and already tired of Vega. <i>Was I ever that young? That...green?</i> There was a good soldier under the inexperience, if his fighting was any indication, but Garrus just hoped the man would live to fulfill it.</p><p>“Nearly there,” he said – just as a Reaper horn sounded and the flaming balls that they’d all learned contained enemy ground forces hit.</p><p>“That sounds bad!” Vega said. </p><p>“Move! Double-time!” Shepard pushed forward, outpacing even Garrus’s longer stride in her determination. “No Reaper’s taking <i>this</i> Primarch from me.”</p><p>“Right behind you,” Vega said.</p><p>Garrus didn’t need to say anything. Shep knew where he’d be. Always.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>For the record, I love Vega, but I just feel like a tired, cranky Garrus would not embrace the new guy just yet. Especially not with some of those in-game lines...</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Primarch (Garrus)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Time to get Victus on board.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>More Garrus because I adore him.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Shepard pulled up short. Vega danced to the side with an abbreviated curse but Garrus, long used to Shepard’s sudden shifts in both thought and movement, simply paused and waited. </p><p>“This Victus,” she said. “You know him? Better than just by reputation?” </p><p>Garrus hummed an affirmative, gave her a human-style nod, and shifted to rest his weight on one foot, wondering where this would go. Her slight head tilt at his movement confused him for a minute, until he remembered her doing that any time he did something she later admitted was attractive. <i>That’s gotta be a good sign. </i></p><p>Shepard shook herself and cleared her throat. “I...what do I have to do to get him on board with this? You said it yourself, it’s a big ask. I need this. For Anderson.” Her voice quietened at the end, turning almost bitter. “He’s...I had to leave him behind. On Earth.” Violet eyes pleaded for his understanding through her helmet’s visor.</p><p>“I understand,” Garrus said in a low voice, even as Vega tensed at the shift in Shepard’s tone. The admiral was the closest thing she had left to a father. Having just rekindled a good relationship with his own father, Garrus was finally starting to get Shepard’s unusual attachment to her superior officer. They’d bonded as family, and she owed him, or felt like she did. </p><p>With a sigh, Garrus looked down at their mismatched feet and shifted again, resigning himself to the fact that Menae would be lost, and Palaven with it. The ask was big...but it was for Shepard. She’d never asked more than she wouldn’t give herself. That she’d consulted him – asked his permission, in a way – meant that she still saw him as her equal, even if he didn’t. That always made a difference. “Give it to him straight. Find a way to make it about war, not about politics. He’s career military. Doesn’t need coddling.”</p><p>“Okay.” She reached out and squeezed his arm. “Thank you, Garrus.”</p><p>Before he could react, she was off again, kicking up moon dust as she made a beeline for the camp’s command center. Garrus followed, Vega hot on his tail and grumbling about being glad she’d been stuck behind a locked door before.</p><p>Shepard wasn’t even breathing hard as she slowed and approached the group of turians gathered around a stack of supply crates. “General Victus?” </p><p>Victus turned, giving Garrus a quick mandible flick of acknowledgment before saying, “Yes?”</p><p>“I’m Commander Shepard of the Normandy.”</p><p>“Commander. I know who you are. I can’t wait to find out what brings you out here,” he said drily. His attention shifted back to Garrus. “Vakarian, where’d you go?” He was testing Shepard. Evaluating her, seeing if she matched the stories Garrus had told between fights. </p><p>Garrus played along, knowing Shepard could handle it. “Heavy Reaper unit on the right flank.” He couldn’t keep the cheeky note out of his subvocals as he said, “I believe your exact words were, ‘Get that thing the hell off my men.’”</p><p>“Appreciate it,” Victus said.</p><p>Shepard holstered her pistol and shifted to parade rest. “General, you’re needed off-planet. I’ve come to get you.”</p><p>“It’ll take something beyond important for me to leave my men, or my turian brothers and sisters, in their fight.” Dry amusement had fled Victus’s subvocals, which now held more than a hint of danger. The look he was giving Shepard was one Garrus had seen directed at marauders, and he had to check his subvocals before he could growl a warning. </p><p>“Fedorian was killed,” Garrus said bluntly, unsure if Shepard’s understanding of subvocal nuance was strong enough to catch the tone and wanting to pull some of the general’s fire away from her. She could handle herself...but he had her six. Always. “You’re the new Primarch.”</p><p>“You’re needed immediately to chair a summit and represent your people in the fight against the Reapers,” Shepard added.</p><p>Victus froze for half a heartbeat at the news, then brushed past them to where he could get a clear view of the burning turian homeworld. “I’m Primarch of Palaven? Negotiating for the Turian Hierarchy?</p><p>“Yes.” Shepard pulled her helmet off and ruffled her short fringe. <i>Hair</i>, he reminded himself, annoyed at how quickly he’d slipped back into mapping her to turians. </p><p>The sweaty strands spiked with the movement, and Garrus had to swallow a different growl this time. <i>Sex hair</i> was how she’d called the look, laughing at her reflection in the mirror after the first time they’d blown off steam. </p><p>Now that he could see her face, some of the tension in him eased. He still wasn’t great at reading humans, but he knew Shepard. She was tired, frustrated, and determined, firm in her role as the Commander, but not ready to do something drastic. Yet.</p><p>“I’ve spent my whole life in the military,” Victus said. “I’m no diplomat. I hate diplomats.”</p><p>Shepard frowned. “What makes you think you're not qualified?” </p><p>“I’m not really a by the book kind of guy, and I piss people off,” Victus said, aggression growling another warning in his subvocals. “My family’s been military since the Unification Wars. War is my life. It’s in my blood. But that kind of passion is...deceptive. Can make you seem reckless when you’re anything but.”</p><p>“War is your resume,” Shepard said, straightening as her grip tightened on her helmet. “At a time like this, we need leaders who’ve been through that hell.”</p><p><i>That’s my girl. Got him</i>, Garrus thought, proud that she’d taken his advice even as he looked up at burning Cipritine, his heart sinking. <i>I’m sorry, Dad, Sol. Spirits, I hope you’re alright.</i></p><p>Victus made a surprised trill of acknowledgment. “I like that, you’re right.”</p><p>“And honestly?” Shepard said. “Uniting these races may take as much strength as facing the Reapers.” She pointed to Palaven. “See this devastation, Primarch? Double that for Earth. I need an alliance. I need the turian fleet.” </p><p>She didn’t back down as Victus approached in just short of a charge, lifting her chin to glare right back at him, and the sense of pride burned higher in Garrus even as he mourned for how badly the human homeworld had been hit. <i>How’d I manage to get her the first time? Will she take me back?</i></p><p>“Give me a moment to say goodbye to my men,” Victus said after a moment of staring down at Shepard. </p><p>Garrus shifted to stand alongside her when the general moved off. “Without him down here, there’s a good chance we lose this moon,” he said in a low voice.</p><p>Shepard scowled. “Without him up there, there’s a good chance we lose everything.”</p><p>She meant it, but that didn’t make any of this easier. “Look at that. And they want my opinion on how to stop it? Failed C-Sec officer, vigilante...and <i>I’m</i> their expert advisor?”</p><p>They stared at the planet. The fingers on Shepard’s free hand brushed his before she cleared her throat and rubbed the back of her neck. His visor registered a heat flare there, rising to her cheeks. </p><p>“Think you can win this thing, Shepard?” he asked, mostly to distract himself from what that might mean.</p><p>“I dunno, Garrus," she said, her voice rougher than usual on his name. "But I’m sure as hell gonna give it my best shot.”</p><p>“I’m damn sure nobody else can do it.” He took a deep breath, heart pounding. “For whatever it’s worth, I’m with you.”</p><p>Her grin and sparkling eyes were everything he could have hoped for as she extended her hand. “Welcome aboard.” She gazed at him for maybe a second too long before that flare of heat burst forth again and she turned back to the group of turians, clearing her throat again. Was she ill? He hoped not.</p><p>“Are you ready, Primarch Victus?” she asked.</p><p>“One thing.” </p><p>
  <i>Here we go…</i>
</p><p>“Commander, I appreciate your need for our fleets, but I can’t spare them. Not while my world is burning.” A subtle note of negotiation entered his subvocals. “But if the pressure could be taken off Palaven…”</p><p>Shepard’s face stayed blank, but Garrus knew that stance. She was ready to beat Victus unconscious with his own rifle and drag him aboard the Normany by his calf spurs. <i>That’d be a hell of a fight</i>. Victus was good – better than Garrus himself at hand-to-hand, which was saying something – but he’d probably never fought a scrappy, infuriatingly flexible little human who didn’t know when to stay dead, let alone down. <i>And Victus doesn’t have my bag of tricks for dealing with Shepard.</i> He smirked before he could straighten his mandibles into a more neutral and appropriate expression.</p><p>“That’s a pretty tall order,” was all Shepard said, despite the tension in her frame.</p><p>Victus delivered his demand. “We need the krogan. I can’t see us winning this thing without them.”</p><p>Vega swore, pretending it was to do with the assault rifle he was suddenly inspecting more intently than was likely necessary. Whether it was a good swear or a bad one, Garrus didn’t know well enough to tell. But Shepard’s eyes had narrowed into the calculating look she got when she was figuring out the easiest path through rough terrain and difficult enemies. “Okay. I’ll make it happen. But I want those ships when I do.”</p><p>Garrus straightened reflexively. Nobody smart spoke to Victus like that when the general – when the <i>Primarch</i> – was in the mood being telegraphed by his body language and subvocals. But all Victus did was stare before relaxing, flapping his mandibles in a laughing grin, and extending his hand, looking surprised when Shepard clasped his forearm, turian-style.</p><p>“Looking forward to kicking some ass with you, General,” she said before settling her helmet back on and calling for a pickup. Victus’s chuckle held a savage edge alongside the amusement.</p><p>
  <i>This just might work.</i>
</p><p>When they arrived on the Normandy and disembarked from the shuttle, Shepard’s hand bumped into Garrus’s for the third time and he decided he didn’t care who saw him hold it. His homeworld was burning, Menae was nearly lost, and “exhausted” was far too energetic a word to describe him just now. He’d spent six long months preparing for an attack nobody had really thought would come, an invasion the woman at his side had warned of so many times people thought she was crazy.</p><p>No. He’d stand by her, literally and figuratively, and he’d hold her Spirits-damned hand as he abandoned his post. Even if she didn’t want to be his girl anymore, friends held hands...he hoped. Her return squeeze made him feel like one way or the other, he was right.</p><p>Vega grunted, cleared his throat, shifted his feet. Victus’s subvocals rang with what humans called an “aha.” Liara smiled from where she waited to greet them, the soft curl of her lips holding a hint of sadness. Garrus didn’t care.</p><p>That was the only public lapse in professionalism he allowed himself. He stuck around long enough to make sure Victus got settled before tucking himself away with the Normandy’s guns. More was usually expected, but he couldn’t be near Shepard and not touch her. She had her Commander face on more firmly than ever now that they were on the ship, and a last nagging worry that she’d found someone else – Vega, maybe – plagued him.</p><p>But if she’d have him...Garrus wanted Shepard back. <i>There’s no Vakarian without Shepard. </i> He just hoped she still felt the same way.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The last few paragraphs were pulled from the one-shot "And the World Stood Still" in <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/15145901/chapters/35669124">Popping the Heat Sink</a> and adapted. Pretty sure I wrote that one drunk and missed a few details about who was where and when. Oh well.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Protocol</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Shepard reminds Garrus of the protocol on reunions.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This chapter diverges from the game because it's outrageous to me that the protocol on reunions doesn't include smut. So. Here be smut.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>With the AI situation handled and EDI back to as close to normal as she got, Mia found herself a tightly wound bundle of frazzled nerves and jangled anxiety. She’d spoken to Primarch Victus. She’d inspected the entirety of the third deck, including checking both loos for any more of her model ships and investigating the refrigeration unit to see if the food was within its safety guidelines. She’d even checked in on Liara, despite the awkwardness of their past almost-fling. </p><p>There was nothing else to check. It was time to see Garrus.</p><p><i>It’s</i> Garrus, <i>for fuck’s sake. Your best friend in the fucking galaxy, whether you’re bedding him or not. It was just like old times on Menae. He held your hand in the hangar bay. It’ll be fine.</i></p><p>She’d overheard the tail end of his conversation with Liara though. The big guy always holed up in the battery; that wasn't unusual. The weight in his voice was. His insistence that he was “gathering some thoughts” – Garrus-speak for, leave me the fuck alone for a little bit. </p><p>Did that include her? She wavered outside the main battery, then took a breath like she was preparing to face charging husks and slapped the door release, half-expecting it to be locked. </p><p>He was chatting with Victus over the comms. The two of them sounded closer than Mia had thought from Menae, more brothers-in-arms than superior and report, and she warmed to hear Garrus speak so well of her. He had to know she was there; nobody else would dare the main battery with him in it. Old crew knew the drill and new crew had stared in awe and more than a little fear at the grim, seven-foot turian who looked exactly like someone who’d taken a rocket to the face would. </p><p>He kept working as she approached as quietly as she could. No music leaked from his visor and he wasn’t humming along to anything, so it was intentional. Focus or...something else?</p><p>
  <i>He held your hand. That has to mean something. </i>
</p><p>Mia clasped her hands behind her back, as much to stop herself from touching him as anything else. Holding her hand after a battle didn’t mean...she couldn't assume...she swallowed, hoping she was doing the right thing. “Garrus, didn’t waste any time getting to work, I see.”</p><p>“After everything I’ve been through lately, calibrating a giant gun is a vacation. Gives me something to focus on.” Weariness and frustration dragged his voice way down into the lower octaves...the dangerous ones...as he straightened and turned. That piercing blue gaze took in every inch of her, pausing on the small blemishes that remained of bruises from the week’s battles. </p><p>“We’re gonna need you for more than your aim,” she said. Oblique enough that it could be innocent...but it was Garrus. Surely he’d read the intent? She resisted the urge to rock on her feet, worrying that she was pressing too hard, too fast. <i>Should have asked how he was doing, first...good going, Shep.</i></p><p>“Oh, I’m ready for it, but I’m pretty sure we’re still gonna need giant guns...and lots of them.” He shifted, cocking one of those damned turian hips and tilting his head to eye her some more, as bird-like as it was dangerous.</p><p>Mia swallowed. Hard. Had he intended that to be the massive turn-on that it was? Was this flirty banter, like they’d exchanged before? Warmth flooded her. “Can’t argue with that,” she managed to say. </p><p>And then...there he was. The old Garrus, the adorably awkward one who wasn’t sure if he should shake her hand or do something more exciting, who was self-conscious about his scars...and who wanted to know how she felt about him. What the protocol was on reunions.</p><p>Mia grabbed the front of his armor and pulled him down to her height to kiss him. “That’s the protocol on reunions.” She was afraid she’d moved too fast when he stiffened, but the purr in his subvocals was a good sound, a happy one, and his next words were banter. Looking him up and down, she decided to cut to the chase. “Any particular reason you’re still wearing all that armor? I promise we didn’t bring any husks up with us.”</p><p>“Err…” A blue flush tinged the hide of his neck, and his good mandible fluttered. Even the bad one twitched, which was about as shocked as Mia had ever seen him. </p><p>“Maybe I should go,” she said teasingly, crossing her arms and lifting one eyebrow. </p><p>Garrus stripped out of his armor faster than she’d ever seen. She barely had time to take in the sight of him before he grabbed her with a desperate little trill, lifting her and holding her close, leaving her breathless with relief and want. She clasped her hands at the back of his neck. Their foreheads touched. </p><p>Everything stopped. Nothing existed except for him. She breathed in the dry, metallic scent of his hide and plates, letting it soothe her. Strained her ears for the rumbling purr of contentment at the lowest edges of her hearing, the one that said, <i>This woman is mine</i>. Tears sprang to her eyes when Mia heard it, and she couldn’t help the shakes that started as six months of tension and doubt and fear that he’d go on without her – living or dead – caught up with her. </p><p>Garrus leaned away and she clenched her jaw, trying to find her strength.</p><p>“Hey, hey, what’s this?” he asked, stepping back to sit on the cot newly reassembled in the corner and settling her astride his lap.</p><p>Mia’s reserve broke. A tear slipped free, and she shook harder. “I was afraid you’d be dead before we could get to Menae,” she said, confessing her deepest fear. “I had to get off Earth with all the fucking Reapers filling the sky, then stop on Mars, and then go see the goddamn Council, and every report said Palaven was burning. Six months without you and –”</p><p>She swallowed hard, choking down the rest of her rambling, then took his head in her hands and kissed him. It was selfish, a human gesture that meant something to him only because it mattered to her, but she needed it and needed him and just...needed. </p><p>A keen slipped from his subvocals, low and haunting, a sound of mourning for what they’d nearly lost, and for what they had lost. When she pulled away, he turned them, easily managing her extra weight, and laid back on the cot with her still straddling him. </p><p>Mia only hesitated a moment. Usually, he was eager to be in charge after a battle, but he was letting her drive. Her hands flew to pull off his clothes as quickly as his had in removing his armor, though she was out of practice with turian garments. A low purr soothed her enough that she stopped fumbling. The aroused growl it shifted into when she got his trousers off and licked along the half-open crease of his plates heated her blood.</p><p>She rose from the cot and pulled her shirt off, then scrambled out of her trousers and knelt atop him again, a leg on either side as she bent to coax his cock out. <i>Let’s see if I still have the knack of...</i></p><p>It sprang free before she could do more than run her tongue along the seam of his groin plates. As she shifted to position herself over him, Garrus reached up to roll a taut nipple between the fingers of one hand while giving her those of the other to suck. She sank onto his length, biting down on his fingers as a cry caught in her throat. </p><p>Garrus moaned as well. “Easy, Shepard,” he soothed, even as his subvocals and the rock of his hips and the blue flush along his waist suggested he didn’t want easy at all.</p><p>She listened to his body rather than his words, lifting herself and slamming back down hard. His pleased growl had more than a little of Archangel in it, but he didn’t try to take control, seeming content to let her ride him. </p><p>Ride him, she did. Six. Long. Months. Of masturbating with a damn bottle of conditioner, because it was the only thing she’d been able to find that came anywhere close to the shape now filling her. It had been a poor substitute. For one thing, it didn’t growl, or shred the pillow. And it didn’t look at her like Garrus did, with a mixture of desire and wonder, hope and hunger. </p><p>He pulled his fingers from between her lips and started rubbing the pearl at the apex of her thighs. Waves of pleasure rolled over Mia and she arched backward, grateful for the Cerberus upgrades for letting her move at the speed he was pulling from her. Each rock of her hips ground her harder against both his groin and his thumb, bringing her closer to release. </p><p>She remembered that she wasn’t the only one wanting pleasure and gripped the sensitive hide of his waist, digging her nails in as deeply as she could. The pitch of his subvocals shifted somewhere filthy and he rocked up hard, sending her to the edge.</p><p>“Garrus, I’m –” she shuddered, movements losing coordination as she came down hard and leaned down to press her forehead against his. Garrus climaxed as she did, his teeth grazing her in the barest nip of a love bite.</p><p>Mia stilled as they just breathed, staying where she was as Garrus ran a blunted talon along her spine. His cock slid out of her, making her shiver. </p><p>“I’m here. You’re here. We’re okay,” he said in a low rumble.</p><p>The ache in her body and the thud of her heart pushed words past her lips that she’d meant to hold onto for a little while longer. “I love you,” she whispered.</p><p>He clasped her shoulders and lifted her away, searching her face. Blood rushed to her cheeks, but she met his eyes, willing him to see that it was true. Praying to the Spirits he seemed to believe in that love truly was a universal language, one that could be spoken without words. </p><p>“Shepard...Mia. I love you too,” he said, his hands tightening on her.</p><p>Her heart stopped. “Really?”</p><p>“Is it that hard to believe?” His mandibles twitched twice in the turian equivalence of a raised eyebrow.</p><p>“I just...when you hope for something for so long, wait for it, imagine it for the whole six months that you’re stuck in house arrest…”</p><p>“Trust me. I know the feeling. Come here.” He gathered her back to him. “And Mia?”</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“When things are looking grim, and I’m pretty sure they will, just remember, we’re in this together.”</p><p>Mia’s heart swelled. </p><p>Then he added, “And if it ends in a giant, fiery explosion taking down a Reaper? Just remember...I took the kill shot.”</p><p>He held her close as she squawked in indignation, chuckling as they wrestled. And just like that, everything was right with the galaxy. Even if it was just for now.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>THAT is the protocol on reunions, thanks XD</p><p>Garrus’s side of this chapter is <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/15145901/chapters/35669124">Popping the Heat Sink, "And the World Stood Still"</a>. The mention of the bottle of conditioner comes from <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/15145901/chapters/35607267">Popping the Heat Sink, "Home Alone"</a>.</p><p>And hey! Come say hi on <a href="https://twitter.com/write_wherever">Twitter</a> or <a href="https://www.instagram.com/write_wherever/">Instagram</a> :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Validation (Shepard)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Mia gets some validation from Victus.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Mia stared at the blinking lights on the galaxy map. Each one indicated a crisis area or an opportunity that could have a chain reaction in the war.</p><p>The Cerberus lab in Sigurd’s Cradle. The students at Grissom Academy in the Petra Nebula. Recovering a Prothean artifact from the Exodus Cluster. A number of requests on the Citadel. The meeting with the diplomats in the Annos Basin. Already more than a single ship and crew could reasonably handle, and these were just the opening days of the war. </p><p><i>It’s going to get so much worse</i>. Mia held back a sigh, conscious of Traynor pretending to work at the station next to her. She’d hoped to have a little longer before starting to triage hotspots, but hope was foolish with a once-in-fifty-thousand-years event bearing down on them with grasping claws and lasers.</p><p>She ignored Hackett’s direction to visit Dr. Bryson “at once”. Everything was urgent in his book, which meant nothing was urgent, and the last time Mia had followed a directive from the admiral it had resulted in 304,942 deaths, the destruction of a star system, and six months under house arrest. All because of her choices...but she wouldn’t own everything when it wasn’t hers to own. It was good to be operating under Alliance colors again, but Jack’s invitation to go pirate still tempted her sometimes. Being reinstated as a Spectre would have to be close enough.</p><p><i>The lab</i>, she decided. She’d seen first-hand the fucked up shit Cerberus got up to. With the Illusive Man desperate to make up for the loss of the human-Reaper prototype, he’d probably be cooking up something even worse. Something that would need stopping now, before they got too far along in development and distributed the work among more cells. After that, Grissom Academy. Reapers bore down on both locations, bumping them up a notch in urgency. “Joker, set course for Sigurd’s Cradle. Sanctum, in the Decoris system.”</p><p>“Aye, aye, Commander. Stand by.”</p><p>“Stand by my ass,” Mia muttered. She itched to spar with Garrus – just like old times – but she’d just gone two rounds with him in the main battery and technically had a job to do. Besides, he’d be up to his spurs in algorithms. The idea of perching on the equipment to get his attention, naked and knees spread, made her smirk all the same. </p><p>General – <i>Primarch</i> – Victus’s knowing look when she arrived in the war room wiped it off her face. </p><p>“Primarch,” she said gruffly. “Got a minute?”</p><p>“For the soldier Garrus Vakarian speaks of so highly? I might find ten,” he replied.</p><p>Mia tilted her head and frowned, shifting her jaw from side to side in the learned approximation of the turian equivalent before she could catch herself, as she tried to interpret the note in his subvocals. Amusement? Curiosity? Implication?</p><p>Victus’s mandibles flared before he pulled them into tight inscrutability. That one, she knew. Surprise, hastily reined in.</p><p>“You can hear our subvocals?” he asked. When she tensed, he added, “Most humans would have taken that comment at face value. I meant no disrespect, Commander. Vakarian is simply...unusually free in his praise of you. It’s...fluffy.”</p><p>“Cute?”</p><p>“Yes, that’s it. The question stands.”</p><p>Mia hesitated, then remembered how Victus and Garrus had spoken to one another in the conversation she’d overheard earlier. Not just as equals, but as friends. Garrus had given her the key to getting the primarch on board. Sharing one of her tightly held secrets would go a little way to addressing that gift and the imbalance that resulted from it. </p><p>Settling easily on her feet somewhere between a parade rest and a combat stance, she said, “The muscle weaves and accelerated healing weren’t the only upgrades Cerberus installed. My senses were augmented beyond the human range.”</p><p>Victus nodded as though that answered more than the question he’d asked. “And combined with the amount of time spent with our Expert Reaper Advisor…you not only hear, but also understand.”</p><p>Mia couldn’t help but grin at the sly note in Victus’s voice, and she appreciated his not holding her association with Cerberus against her. <i>I like him</i>, she decided, relaxing to lean against the console Victus was working at. “Garrus is my right hand,” she said lightly, resting the hand in question on her service pistol briefly to clarify the idiom. “Will that be a problem, Primarch?”</p><p>Rather than taking offense, Victus chuckled. “On the contrary. It’ll make it easier to sell this back home. The Alliance was short-sighted to put you under house arrest with enemies at the gate. You have your share of sympathizers in the Hierarchy, as does Vakarian after his performance on Menae. The two of you as...friends?” </p><p>Again the sly note slipped in, as though he knew it was more than that but couldn’t prove it. Victus straightened and met her gaze solidly, all teasing gone. “You’re the best-known human in the galaxy. A soldier of unquestioned honor, who did the hard thing more than once despite great personal cost. Unorthodox, but that’s what it takes to survive.” He studied her. “The Incident wasn’t all that long ago. Most humans still mistrust turians. For you to claim one of us as your ‘right hand’ is telling. It’ll help quiet the fools who are looking for human treachery in the midst of the call to aid Earth.”</p><p>“Thank you, Primarch. That means a great deal,” Mia said, reaching for her poker face as her throat tightened with emotion. <i>My own people want to call me a villain, and the turian primarch is calling me honorable</i>. </p><p>“It’ll still be a hard sell,” Victus said, turning back to his console. “But that’s not what you came here to talk about, is it?”</p><p>“No.” </p><p>As she asked her probing questions about the situation on Palaven and got acquainted with Victus, Mia could see why he and Garrus were friends. They had the same irreverence about them, the same driving passion and care for those they loved. A sudden pang struck Shepard as she saw the man Garrus could grow into one day, and wondered if they’d live long enough to see it. </p><p>With an effort, she pulled her mind away from thoughts of growing old with Garrus. <i>Think about that later</i>. They were only days into a war they had only the faintest hope of winning, but she’d hold onto that hope. Beyond saving Earth or destroying the Reapers, Mia fought for that future with Garrus.</p><p>Joker announced their arrival in the Decoris system as she was winding down with Victus. </p><p>“Duty calls,” Mia said. “Thanks for the chat, Primarch.” On her way to the gear lockers, she called Garrus and Liara. “Suit up, kids. We’re gonna have a bit of fun.”</p><p>“What have we got, Shepard?” Garrus asked as the three of them converged on the shuttle bay ten minutes later. An enthusiastic note thrummed in his subvocals as he checked his rifles over, probably for the fifth time. </p><p>“Cerberus. They’re developing something in a lab.”</p><p>Enthusiasm became a sharp growl and Liara winced. Cerberus might have brought Mia back from the dead, but Garrus harboured a special grudge for the way they’d used her afterward. </p><p>He looked up from his rifle, gaze sharp and deadly. “Then let’s deprive them of it,” he said slowly, in Archangel’s deep tones. One of the Alliance crewmen working on the remainder of the retrofit work looked up at the dangerous note and paled, setting down his datapad and finding something to do elsewhere. </p><p>Mia grinned and clapped her lover on the shoulder as they hopped up and into the shuttle together. “Glad you’re up for a smash and grab, Officer Vakarian,” she said, teasing him with his C-Sec days in hopes of lightening the mood. </p><p>“Glad Expert Reaper Adviser Vakarian has more leeway,” he shot back. The cocky tilt to his mandibles and the cobalt spark in his eyes told Mia he’d take full advantage of that fact.</p><p>***</p><p>“Going back for the medigel data was reckless, and you know it,” Garrus grumbled, keeping his voice down as they stepped off the shuttle after the mission. “That turret was a second away from being deployed.”</p><p>“Says the guy who wrote the book on reckless. Besides, it worked, didn’t it?” Mia grinned up at him and scrubbed her fingers through sweat-dampened hair. Turning to Liara, she initiated an omni-tool transfer. “Liara, could you put out some feelers on this, please? We’ll hand it over to the hanar, of course, but I want to play it smart if we can. Give it to the side more likely to join us.”</p><p>Liara accepted the transfer. “Of course, Shepard,” she said absently, her mind obviously already far away from the shuttle bay as she planned whatever was next on the Shadow Broker’s to-do list. </p><p>Sighing, Mia wondered if she’d need to rethink her squad configuration as the asari headed back to her mobile operations center. Liara was too valuable now to risk in the field, given that she was the only one currently with both an inkling of how to assemble the prothean weapon and the willingness to help the Alliance build it. And that was ignoring her value as the Shadow Broker.</p><p>Garrus nudged her as they followed. “Don’t overthink it.”</p><p>“I know.” She stopped at the lift and called it.</p><p>“But you’re going to anyway,” he said with wry affection.</p><p>“Only if you don’t come up and help me with some...reporting.” The doors slid open and Mia stepped into the lift, turning to slouch against the wall and raise one eyebrow at him.</p><p>A pleased purr turned into an anticipatory chuckle as Garrus looked her up and down. “There’s more to do on calibrations, but I do love...reporting...with you, Commander.” He joined her, waiting only for the doors to shut before hemming her into the corner and pressing his forehead to hers. “I don’t know if I’d rather wait til we get upstairs, or get this party started right now.”</p><p>“<i>I</i> don’t know if you guys are cute or gross,” Joker said over the intercom.</p><p>Mia spared a hand from massaging the sensitive spot on Garrus’s neck to give the camera the finger. "Mind your business and set course for Grissom Academy."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I'm feeling a smutty chapter next...how's that sound?</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Agreements (Garrus)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Shameless smut chapter because I can XD with hurt/comfort at the end.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Garrus had forgotten how luxurious the shower was in the captain’s quarters. It didn’t make much of a difference for him; turians weren’t much for water. Humans, on the other hand...they might have been an arboreal species in the distant past of their evolutionary tree, but Mia made it seem like they had aquatic ancestry. </p><p>He leaned against the sink, having completed his quick scrub, and watched her as she skimmed her hands over her curves. The cloth in her grip obscured patches of skin in flashes, and her attentiveness to the cleanliness of her lower regions drew a subvocal growl from him. </p><p>Violet eyes and white teeth flashed. “Like that, big guy?”</p><p>“I’d like it better if you’d hurry up,” Garrus replied, not bothering to hide the tight need in his voice and the demand in his subvocals. The plates in his own nether regions had that sloppy-loose feel of pre-separation, and he had plans for his cock that didn’t involve his own hand.</p><p>From Mia’s smirk, she heard both auditory cues. All she did was turn and demonstrate the cleanliness of her backside. </p><p>“That’s clean enough.” He leaned in and snatched her, punching the water off with an elbow and wrestling her out of both the shower and the bathroom. </p><p>Mia shrieked – but it was the good one, the one that meant she was playing, not scared, not hurt, just thrilled at their mock battle. “Vakarian! You let me go!”</p><p>“I don’t think so, Commander.” Garrus took advantage of his greater reach and height, hoisting her up to get her down the Spirits-damned stairs. She was strong – Cerberus had ensured that she could hold an omni-shield against a yahg – and slippery as hell as she kicked out at empty air, but she allowed it. He knew a token struggle from a real one and didn’t care that this was all play. They weren’t sparring. Garrus wouldn’t tolerate her throwing a match, but this was different.</p><p>She twisted as they reached the bed, reaching for the sensitive spot on his waist. “I said –”</p><p>He tossed her onto the mattress and let his voice drop as he followed, catching her and leaning his weight against her before she could wriggle away. “<i>I</i> said, no. You had your fun in the water. Now it’s my turn.” </p><p>Mia groaned as he pinned her arms over her head. “Garrus…” Her upward arc was impressive, given that her spine was all she could really move with her wrists held tight and her hips pinned under him. She bit her lip, begging with her eyes as much as her body. </p><p>Garrus was ready for the change in her tactics. Mia was nothing if not wily, and she was an Infiltrator in the field. Stealth came as easily to her as a frontal assault. “Flexibility won’t get you out of this one,” he said.</p><p>“What will?”</p><p>He read her body’s tells. Even without his visor, they were clear. <i>Husky voice, blown pupils, hot to the touch…</i> He shifted his grip to hold both her wrists in one hand, dragging the blunted talons of the other down her body to watch her shudder before testing the wet warmth between her thighs. <i>Ready</i>.</p><p>Her slack, hungry expression said that she thought she knew what was coming next. Garrus turned the tables on her, freeing her to slide off the bed and stand at the end. </p><p>Mia caught on quickly, slithering down to land on her knees in front of him. He nodded when she looked up in confirmation. There was an act that humans and asari did, that he’d become particularly attached to…</p><p>Her hot tongue lapping along the gaping crease of his plates said that she definitely knew what he wanted, and Garrus groaned as he finally let himself free. Mia’s mouth was there to catch his cock as it emerged, and the way she worked to accommodate his entire length drew another growl from him, pleased and possessive. There was something about the sight of <i>the</i> Commander Shepard, on her knees, servicing him, struggling to take all of him, that aroused him more than anything.</p><p>After reminding himself that it wouldn’t hurt her – at least not more than she liked – he gripped her hair and guided her movements. The sounds she made as those soft lips slid along his shaft dragged him a little too close to the edge, and he pulled her off, using his grip to make her look at him. </p><p>“Every time you make me worry like I did today, you’re doing this,” he said, amplifying the warning in his subvocals. They’d agreed to follow turian custom – if she led in battle, he led in bed. </p><p>The flash of her tongue over her lips and the shiver of her body under his grip told him he might have miscalculated. “Is that meant to encourage me, or…?”</p><p>“Spirits – dammit Shepard, get up.”</p><p>As soon as she found her feet, Garrus spun her, then gripped her hips with one hand and clasped the back of her neck with the other, hinging her forward. She braced against the bed with a grunt, shifting her feet and arching her back to present the backside he’d admired earlier. In the slightest movement of her hips, she was open to him and very clearly ready. </p><p>“Don’t make me beg,” she said when he hesitated to admire her.</p><p><i>Another time, maybe</i>. Garrus pushed into Mia as slowly as he could, knowing that would make her wilder than unleashing himself. Watching her pant and grip the sheets as she writhed was reward enough for frustrating himself in the process. </p><p>He only managed that once before allowing himself to let go and just enjoy tight warmth of the love of his life. The movement of her body against his, the pleasure of their joining, the sight and sound and smell of her as he used every trick he could remember to pull more sensual confirmation from her.</p><p>Mia slept after he’d exhausted and satisfied them both, her even breaths and turian-slow heartbeat saying that she was truly and deeply lost to slumber, untroubled by dreams. She was wrapped around him as though he was the only thing in the galaxy left to hold onto, her forehead tucked against his neck. </p><p>He had to be sure, though. “EDI,” Garrus said in the lowest voice he could manage. “Is she doing okay?”</p><p>“Hello, Garrus,” the AI said in equally quiet tones. “She is better now that you are aboard. Biometrics indicate this is her first restful sleep since she returned to the Normandy.”</p><p>“Got it. Thanks, EDI.” Garrus cupped the back of Mia’s head, pressing his forehead against hers and crooning a love note before letting himself ease into sleep.</p><p>***</p><p>Garrus had plenty of nightmares. Dead squadmates. Civilians left to bleed out. One he particularly hated, of a kid he’d failed on Omega, which he never let himself dwell on too long. The new one about being turned into a marauder. But they were nothing on the ones Mia had, if her wakings were any indication. </p><p>She jerked free of him and scrambled up to press her back against the head of the bed, gasping so hard that he was surprised she could still use her lungs, before glancing at the skylight and shuddering. </p><p><i>The one about being spaced, again.</i> That one made Garrus wish he could destroy the Collector base twice, suicide mission or not. The Council as well, for sending her on the fool’s errand that had led to her death rather than listening to her warnings.</p><p>Her breathing came in ragged pants as she buried her face in her knees, hugging herself in an impossibly tight ball.</p><p>“Easy, Shepard. I’m here,” he murmured as he propped himself up on an elbow, cursing whoever the fuck hadn’t removed that Spirits-damned skylight during the retrofits as he waited until her breathing slowed to rest a hand on her arm. He’d learned the hard way not to try reassuring her before she’d oriented herself and had a minute to deal with it.</p><p>She relaxed slightly under his touch. “Garrus.”</p><p>“That’s me," he purred, making it cocky. "Best shot on the Normandy.”</p><p>As intended, the quip pulled her attention away from whatever had been echoing through her mind, and she lifted her head. Consternation lit her gaze. “I think you’ll find I had more headshots in that last mission.”</p><p>“I think <i>you’ll</i> find that doesn’t matter. In this room, what I say, goes.”</p><p>Mia scowled, drawing herself up further. </p><p>Her outraged expression made him chuckle. When the tension in her face eased at the sound, he flicked a mandible in a teasing grin, offered a friendly chirp, and said, “Come here.”</p><p>She huffed, but slid down and cuddled as close as she could. “Please don’t –” She broke off, breathing deep a few times before finishing the thought. “Please don’t let anything happen to you,” she whispered, curling tighter into what his research had called the fetal position. </p><p>That was a promise even a rebel like him couldn’t keep, but he could try. “Sure, Shepard. As long as you do the same.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Prothean</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>A snatch and grab from Cerberus has an unexpected outcome.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The shuttle rattled down to Eden Prime. The colony was close to the bottom of Mia’s list of places to revisit, and she breathed in and out with the inhuman slowness permitted by her Cerberus upgrades, seeking calm. The Beacon and Saren's betrayal had happened here. Her first Spectre mission, ended in what she barely allowed herself to call a success. Jenkins’s death, and that of Nihlus. The turian Spectre had died before she could figure out if she’d had a crush on him, or if it was just hero worship. </p><p>“I remember hearing about Saren,” Garrus was saying. “I was itching to prove something against him. Build a case.” Even three years later, frustration and triumph made a discordant twang in his subvocals. </p><p>Mia tilted her head to study him, smiling as warmth filled her. She loved his passion, and appreciated the distraction from thinking too hard on her past visits here. Probably exactly what he’d intended, knowing Garrus. “Sometimes I find it hard to believe you were ever in C-Sec,” she replied.</p><p>“I wanted to help people. Fortunately, you showed me how to use the direct route.” He gave her a wink before running through his usual pre-mission checks – armor, guns, comms – leaving her space to process and prepare.</p><p>Liara chattered about the possibilities for the artifact they might find the rest of the way. Mia was just glad her helmet stopped everyone from seeing the sidelong glances she threw in Garrus’s direction as the shuttle descended. She hardly dared to believe that they’d just…slipped back into old times, old habits, as easily as though they’d never been separated. </p><p>
  <i>Don’t look for trouble where there isn’t any. Just accept that he fits you, and you fit him. It’s okay if not everything in your life is a struggle. Don't fuck up the one good thing you have going right now.</i>
</p><p>Cortez banged on the door, pulling her out of her musings. “This is your stop, Commander,” he called as the doors slid open.</p><p>Mia waved and thanked him before hopping to the ground. “This was a beautiful colony once,” she muttered, remembering the first visit as she looked around. Even in the midst of a geth attack, it had been easy to see why the first colonists had called it Eden.</p><p>Garrus dropped down beside her. “They’ll rebuild it. Later.”</p><p>“They rebuilt Mindoir.” She swallowed past the sudden lump in her throat, choking it down to sit heavy in her belly. The one trip she’d made back home after gaining her commission and convincing herself to return had been rough. “It wasn’t the same.” And she wouldn't be going back again, if she could help it.</p><p>“It never is,” Garrus said gently. </p><p>He had a point, but she didn’t want to consider it just now. Mia normally considered herself a realist, but this was disrupting her vision of the future, the one thing she needed to cling to: that everything would be okay after all of this was over. That there would be a beautiful world for her and Garrus to retire to and…she pulled away, not letting herself follow that route any further. Not when she already knew everything would be destroyed and all they could hope to save were embers that could be stoked into something new. Something she and her crew would survive to build together.</p><p>“Let’s see what we’ve got,” Mia said, shaking herself and jogging ahead. Liara kept pace alongside her, eager enough that a haze of biotic blue tinged her before the asari could suppress it.</p><p>Discovering that the artifact they were here to lift from Cerberus was an actual prothean was a shock. A flicker of hope lit in Mia at Liara's speculations as to the prothean's identity, and she tamped it down. Liara was always the optimist, even in her new role as the Shadow Broker, but Mia couldn’t afford it just now. </p><p>A Cerberus shuttle roared overhead. Its door slid open to spew troopers and centurians. </p><p><i>Definitely not the time to think about that</i>. </p><p>***</p><p>The recording at the control console triggered the cipher still living somewhere deep in Mia’s mind. She grunted and gritted her teeth as it washed over her, showing a battle scene of warped protheans - early Collectors - fighting their resisting brethren. A last stand. Destroyed life pods. A Reaper thundering through some ancient city, as they had through Vancouver.</p><p>She shuddered and pulled herself out of it, forcing her brain back onto the mission in this time, not the one fifty thousand years ago. “I think I can duplicate that to open the life pod.”</p><p>“You understood it?” Liara said, a hint of jealousy tingeing the awe in her voice. </p><p>“You didn’t?” Mia replied before she could think. </p><p>Liara smiled tightly. “The cipher lets you see as a prothean would.”</p><p><i>Great. Another thing that makes me a freak</i>. Mia couldn’t bring herself to look at Garrus as she hurried past them and said, “There’s a piece missing. The signal. Let’s go.” </p><p>They battled their way through another Cerberus squad to find the other control room. Mia didn’t miss the way Garrus hovered while trying to pretend he wasn’t, but he kept his distance and kept his eyes on the door so she let it be while she absorbed the second video. </p><p>Liara glanced between the screen and her when it finished. “You understood that one, too?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Mia said, shaking herself. “I’ve got the signal the protheans used to activate stasis mode. Should be able to reverse it.”</p><p>Enthusiasm made the Shadow Broker sound like the naive archaeologist she’d been when Mia had first met her. “Excellent. Then we have everything we need to open the pod.”</p><p>Mia patted Garrus’s arm as she passed him on her way to the door, in thanks and comfort. He was doing exactly what she needed him to do: have her six, strong and silent. He likely held his tongue in the knowledge that his commentary carried more weight with her than anyone else’s, not wanting to disrupt or usurp her leadership. Not that she’d see it that way, but it made it easier to know when he was bothered enough that she did need to check her judgment. </p><p>He offered a subvocal rumble at her touch, equal parts warning and protectiveness, and fell in alongside Liara behind her. Liara was too busy bouncing on her toes at the prospect of opening the pod to notice.</p><p>They easily dispatched the Cerberus troops that tried to prevent them from returning to the life pod, but it wasn’t like Cerberus to give up easily.</p><p>“I don’t like this,” Mia muttered when they found the bridge retracted and irreparably disabled. After a quick search, they found their way to the roof of a prefab unit that would take them back over the ravine to the prothean life pod. </p><p>Mia held up a fist. “Stay up here. Cover me.” She slid down the ladder before either of her squadmates could protest, cloaking behind a stack of crates at the bottom before easing out and dashing for the pod. </p><p>“I’m transmitting the signal,” she said as she reached it. Her cloak shimmered and fell, and she gritted her teeth. Even with Garrus positioned on the roof with a sniper rifle, she felt exposed. </p><p>“Perfect,” Liara said. “It’ll take a few moments for the lifepod to process it.”</p><p>The roar of another shuttle had Mia sprinting for cover as Garrus said, “Heavy forces inbound. Looks like we’ve got a siege on our hands.” A click signaled his switching over to their private channel, where he added, “Dammit, Shepard, next time I’ll play bait. Get your ass back up here.”</p><p>She didn’t bother to point out that next time he’d better be the one with a prothean cipher lodged in his resurrected skull, saving her breath for the sprint back to the ladder. “You’re cute when you’re cranky, Vakarian,” she said when she slid in beside him, rolling to her belly. </p><p>Automatic rifle fire stopped him from saying more. Instead, he flooded the team channel with “Fire in the Courtyard” from the Fleet and Flotilla soundtrack before lining up a shot at an assault trooper preparing to leap from the shuttle hovering at eye level. </p><p>The trooper jerked and dropped, headless, and Mia lined up a shot of her own. <i>Gotta keep up</i>. She smiled grimly behind her helmet, timing rifle shots to the cadence of Garrus’s overloads, Liara’s warps, her own incineration blasts, and the thump of the bass in the soundtrack.</p><p>With Liara providing crowd control, Mia and Garrus were even in kills by the time the Cerberus troops were all dead and the Atlas was destroyed. That meant Garrus, with one more headshot, had won this round.</p><p>“Better luck next time, Shepard,” Garrus said smugly before dropping down the ladder. </p><p>“Next time, I’m stealing the Atlas,” she said, already grinning at the idea. They’d shattered the reinforced glass over the cockpit and Garrus had gotten the headshot on the pilot. Mia’s own shot, coming right behind it, had hit something critical and blown the mech. </p><p>Garrus’s head snapped toward her, and she could envision the way his mandibles probably tightened as he said, “That’s cheating.”</p><p>“Then I guess you better climb up first, hey, big guy?” He wouldn’t be able to see Mia’s wide grin, but she knew he’d hear it in her voice – just like she heard the confounded rumble in his subvocals. She was the better, faster climber. The big guns of the next Atlas would be hers.</p><p>They approached the stasis pod slowly. When no more Cerberus shuttles dropped in, Mia gave it one last scan. Her heart thundered as she triggered the release. It slid open…to reveal a being as unlike the Collectors as humans were unlike husks. They still had the same four eyes and spade-shaped crest, but was lighter and finer in build, even in the heavy armor they still wore.</p><p>Green hazed the prothean. </p><p>“Shit!” Mia said, diving to the side as biotic pressure resolved itself in a wave of force.</p><p>The prothean stumbled out, spinning, head tilting to take in the landscape. </p><p>While their new friend was distracted with the view, Mia stood and eased forward.</p><p>Liara scrambled to her feet. “Remember, it’s been fifty thousand years for him, but for us, it’s only been –”</p><p>Mia rested her hand on the prothean’s shoulder. “– Minutes,” a prothean voice said in her head. She watched the final moments of the last stand on this planet. Felt the pain of this Commander Javik. His despair, and the fire as it morphed into a deep-seated drive for vengeance.</p><p>“How many others?” Javik asked when they came out of the vision. His voice cracked, though whether from anguish or disuse, Mia couldn't tell.</p><p>“Just you,” she said.</p><p>The prothean tensed, looking out over the valley below. “So. We failed.”</p><p>Mia frowned and crossed her arms. “You can understand me?”</p><p>“I read your physiology.”</p><p>“You were reading me while I saw –”</p><p>“Our last moments. Our failure.”</p><p>“Your people did everything they could,” Mia said, pushing aside her own doubt in an effort to offer some commiseration. “They never gave up. And I could use some of that commitment now.” </p><p>The prothean regarded each of them in turn, its four eyes blinking as one. “Asari. Human. Turian.” Disgust filled his voice. “I am surrounded by primitives.”</p><p>Their translators wouldn’t have caught up yet, but Garrus bristled and Liara frowned at his tone. </p><p><i>Fuck’s sake</i>. Mia sought patience. “Will you join us?”</p><p>“You fight the Reapers?” the prothean – Javik – seemed doubtful.</p><p>Nodding, Mia said, “Yes.”</p><p>“Then we will see.” Wariness tinged Javik’s voice. </p><p><i>Fine</i>, Mia thought. <i>Just get your ancient ass on the shuttle so we can get the hell outta here.</i> She was tired of the weight of destroyed dreams.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Sorry the updates are so slow, y'all! I have a day job and a book coming out in 6 weeks, plus am taking a course. Lots to do these days. Thanks for your patience. Will get to some more angsty and smutty stuff soon &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>If you want to skip to some standalone Mia + Garrus smut, try <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/15145901">Popping the Heat Sink</a>. Read more about Mia Shepard in the <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/series/527065">Heartbeat series</a>.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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